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Jill Craigie and her suffragette film

  By

Gillian E. Murphy, London School of Economics (LSE) Library

8 July 2019

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This blog is adapted from a paper I gave at the British Women Documentary Filmmakers 1930-1955 symposium held at LSE on 5 April 2019. Here I will focus on a film proposal by Jill Craigie which never became reality. The source for this paper is Jill Craigie’s archive which is held in LSE’s Women’s Library. I’m approaching this as a historian and archivist.

Jill Craigie was born in Fulham in 1914 to a Russian father and Scottish mother. She had an unhappy childhood, spending most of her time between different boarding schools, and she took solace in writing. She left school at 18, first working as a journalist on a teenage magazine. At the age of 19 she married sculptor, Claude Begbie-Clench; they had a daughter, Julie, but the marriage did not last. Jill flirted briefly with acting in 1937, landing a small role in a circus melodrama, Make- Up, co-written by Jeffrey Dell, who later became her second husband.

During the Second World War, Jill worked as an air-raid warden, and while waiting for the siren to signal approaching enemy aircraft, she had a lot of time to read. One of the books she read was Sylvia Pankhurst’s autobiography The Suffragette Movement. Sylvia was one of the daughters of Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant group who campaigned for women’s suffrage. The book marked a turning point for Jill and, in a rough autobiographical account held in Jill Craigie’s archive, she wrote about this revelation. She greatly enjoyed Sylvia’s colourful writing and the way Sylvia presented a social scene through the eyes of an artist. Sylvia’s work made Jill think about women’s lives and the relationship between men and women. She said it made her a feminist.

Photograph of Sylvia Pankhurst, c. 1910 (courtesy of LSE Library)

According to Jill’s memoir, one of the first things she did after reading The Suffragette Movement was to attend a meeting in Trafalgar Square to hear MP Edith Summerskill protesting against the Government’s proposal to pay female victims of air raids less compensation than men. Jill then came across an announcement in the newspaper about former suffragettes gathering on 14 July to lay flowers at Emmeline Pankhurst’s statue at the Houses of Parliament. No date is given in Jill’s memoir, but it must have been sometime in 1943 or 1944. Laying flowers at Emmeline’s statue was an annual event since 1930 when the statue was first erected. The statue was later moved in 1958 to its present position, just to the north, in Victoria Tower Gardens.

Unveiling of the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst, 1930 (courtesy of LSE Library)

Jill decided to go along to the flower-laying ceremony. Reflecting on the event in her memoir, Jill added: “I have to confess that I had a double motive for wishing to meet the suffragettes….I had just started what I hoped might become a splendid career in the film industry.” She imagined the idea of a suffragette film: “The subject as conceived for the screen would be primarily one of spectacle mingled with politics yet offering plenty of scope for emotion, romance, comedy, violence, suspense, despair and tragedy. I dreamed that one day I would make a great film about the struggle for the vote, historically accurate…”

As Jill approached Emmeline’s statue, she saw older women wearing Votes for Women sashes and WPSU badges. She felt an intruder but once the women noticed her, they welcomed her. This piqued Jill’s interest even more and she began researching the suffrage movement. Initially, Jill worked like an oral historian, interviewing suffragettes and encouraging them to write down their stories. In Jill’s archive there is a lot of primary source material such as letters, speeches, leaflets, compiled by her to add context to her planned film.

Jill entered into correspondence with various suffragettes relating to the possibility of a suffragette film. On 9 June 1944, Jill wrote to Sylvia Pankhurst: “I am writing a script covering a large part of the women’s movement. I am anxious that the film should be historically accurate and this would naturally mean re-enacting some of the great scenes in which you played the leading role….” Jill wanted to include Emmeline Pankhurst and hoped Sylvia would not object. She ended the letter with “I have a very great admiration for your past achievements….”

Jill also received a letter from Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, who had been treasurer of the WSPU, telling her that Christabel Pankhurst would prove difficult. Christabel had moved to the States in 1921, returning briefly to be made Dame of the British Empire in 1936. She had become a Second Day Adventist and very conservative. Christabel wanted to be represented by a committee of suffragettes. Other letters were to Annie Kenney and Helen Archdale, who became a mediator between Jill and Annie.

Christabel Pankhurst in New York, c. 1914 (courtesy of LSE Library)

Over the summer of 1944, Jill tried to make arrangements to see these women in an attempt to come up with a plan for a film. This proved impossible as there was much rivalry between the different factions, a hang-over from the suffrage campaign. In August, Jill wrote to Emmeline Pethick Lawrence: “I’m still winding my way through the maze of suffragette politics.” There are hints in the letters about how Jill might approach the suffragette film. In one of the last letters from Sylvia to Jill she said: “You indicated to me, I think, to represent the Movement through the eyes of a girl today looking back on it.” Sylvia then gave her opinion on this: “there are advantages in that method but it tends to make the events appear remote and to sacrifice the human quality of it all.”

In the following month, Jill wrote to Helen Archdale: “I have been advised by the producer of another company [which is not named] that if I get it into a shooting script form, then there would be no difficulty in going to production, he would back it, or partly so. But not worth my while doing this if Annie Kenney is difficult. In the meantime I am filling in time doing a documentary about post-war planning as I can’t bear to be out of work any longer.”

The documentary referred to by Jill became The Way We Live which was released in 1946. The film is told through the eyes of a bombed-out family in Plymouth; Craigie did not want to impose her own opinions on the film. She saw herself as an interpreter of the ideas of the architects, the town councillors and the people of Plymouth.

Jill would probably have taken a similar approach in her suffragette film, not imposing her own views, but portraying the movement through those who had lived it and to represent this through film. However, no consensus could be reached. The suffragette film project was put on hold and the film was not produced.

Jill’s interest in the suffrage movement never diminished and she continued to collect material on the subject, keeping in touch with many suffragettes. Her archive also contains her drafts for a book ‘Daughters of Dissent’ which was never published.

Find out more about Jill Craigie’s archive and other collections at LSE: www.lse.c.uk/library and twitter @LSELibrary. We also have lots of suffrage images on our Flickr account which you can see here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/

Dr Gillian Murphy is the Curator for Equality, Rights and Citizenship at LSE Library. She moved to LSE with the Women’s Library in 2013, where she had worked as an archivist for many years. Gillian promotes the Women’s Library collection and the Hall-Carpenter Archives through exhibitions, talks, blogs and workshops.

http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/people/gillian-murphy

Disclaimer: The IAMHIST Blog is a platform that offers individual scholars the opportunity to present their work and thoughts. They alone are responsible for the content, which does not represent the view of the IAMHIST council or other IAMHIST members.

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‘Our Day Out’ – Memories from the Keith Medley Archive

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Ian Bradley, Liverpool John Moores University and Sue Potts, Institute of Cultural Capital

7 December 2018

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In 2009 Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) was introduced to a largely forgotten collection of negatives, ledgers and glass plates by the family of a local commercial and press photographer Keith Medley. The collection was eventually donated to the University and is and currently located at the Special Collections and Archives at the university.

Following a successful bid by the Liverpool Screen School at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences to the Heritage Lottery Fund, work commenced on developing a media archival project utilising a selection of images from the archives which eventually formed the backbone of a project entitled Our Day Out

Keith Medley worked in and around Merseyside for most of his career between 1949 until his retirement in 1987. The accompanying photographic ledgers revealed a broad range of subject material drawn from around the region documenting a variety of events including: sport, portraiture and commerce. A small portion of the archive also featured the local seaside resort of New Brighton and many of the original negatives and glass slides show activities from the resorts heyday back in the early 1960s.

The resort of New Brighton is a small seaside town on the Wirral coast at the mouth of the River Mersey. It was a favourite destination for family outings from the nearby city of Liverpool and many made the short journey across the river via the New Brighton ferry service. This aspect of the collection portrayed typical seaside activities and included many of the resorts former attractions including: its pier, fairground and large outdoor bathing pool. Because of its long association with the City of Liverpool residents from around the region affectionately remembered the resorts heyday as a place of fun and entertainment.

Figure 1: New Brighton Beach and Pier c.1965

Figure 2: Open Air Swimming Pool c.1965

Our Day Out utilised a segment of the archive and work commenced on digitising a selection of negatives and glass plates. These were initially uploaded to the photo sharing website Flickr and provided an opportunity to collate the available resources and illustrate the extent of the archive available

A small representative sample from the collection, depicting typical seaside activities, was assembled to form a series of memory packs to be used by student volunteers as part of a series of workshops conducted at two local community centres in Liverpool – The Poppy Centre, run by Age Concern, and Kensington Fields Community Association. Working with pensioners from both centres, the activity workshops encouraged moments of personal recollection and at times lively debate around the theme of family excursions and teenage visits to the seaside. Although a number of participants were initially rather hesitant, particularly about their ability to recall events so far back in time, however, the use of photographic documentation provided an effective means prompting memory discourse.

Audio recordings from these workshops provided useful context and helped determine subsequent lines of enquiry. The workshops were also seen as an effective icebreaker helping to break down the age barrier between volunteers and student helpers while encouraging further participation.

Following this initial success volunteers expressed a keen interest in developing their role and participation with the project subsequently volunteering to take part in a series of more personalised interviews to be conducted in front of camera and with each interview adding further depth and voice to the collection.

The second phase of the project built on the notion of the traditional seaside post card and involved the creation of a series of individual personalised post cards depicting a number of images drawn from the collection, each one selected by the our volunteers.

Figures 3 and 4: Post Card Templates

Figure 5: Post Card Reverse

The ensuing post cards also incorporated excerpts taken from interviews, again further extending the post card metaphor while providing a recognisable association with the past, which contributors could directly relate to. This approach was further augmented by the integration of Quick Response (QR) codes, printed on the reverse, which enabled access to individual video interviews using appropriate smart phone technology.

It was felt that by facilitating access to traditional and familiar forms of distribution, participants were given a more tangible and recognisable keepsake. The post cards also offered further opportunity for distribution amongst friends and family and provided opportunity, for those with appropriate technology, to have access to video transcripts via the OR codes.

The final phase of the project involved the creation of a dedicated website to host outputs and promote comment and further reflection. The website, entitled ‘Our Day Out’ also included a short form documentary by way of an introduction.

This experience was also replicated through social media channels, which again extended discussion and provided further context. In some instances the posting and sharing of content threw up some unexpected consequences, including several postings, which later identified individuals from the archive.

To celebrate the completion of the project, a series of exhibitions featuring framed photographs together with contributions collected from all the interviews was available at the two participating centres and a further and more formal exhibition was curated at the Museum of Liverpool in 2016.

Our Day Out brought the existence of the Keith Medley archive to the public eye and successfully demonstrated the potential of the archive as a valuable social document bringing about substantial public interest. Our Day Out has also tested the water with the collection and demonstrated the potential of such an archive as important social record of everyday life.

Ian Bradley, Lecturer Media Production, Liverpool Screen School, Liverpool John Moores University

Sue Potts, Knowledge Exchange and Business Manager, The Institute of Cultural Capital

Disclaimer: The IAMHIST Blog is a platform that offers individual scholars the opportunity to present their work and thoughts. They alone are responsible for the content, which does not represent the view of the IAMHIST council or other IAMHIST members.

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Researching World War I On Film

  By

Ron van Dopperen

21 November 2017

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The centennial of the First World War has brought about a renewed public interest in this major military conflict.  When I first visited Belgium as a history student in the 1980s there were still veterans around who had been in the trenches. They were there to hear the Last Post under the Menin Gate, and I remember vividly how impressed I was by the ceremony and the sight of all these names of the soldiers who had found an anonymous grave in the Ypres Salient.

As the saying goes ‘Old soldiers never die, they simply fade away’. It is the same with the films of the Great War. Stored on highly flammable nitrate stock, the film legacy of World War I presents scholars and film fans all over the world with an amazing historical source. The footage to be sure is slowly fading away. Unless preserved on safety stock or digitized we are losing by decomposition an invaluable part of our cultural heritage. I recall the first time I went into the nitrate vaults of the Library of Congress in Culpeper, Virginia, with my esteemed fellow author Cooper Graham, looking for lost film of this war. I was feeling like a kid in a candy store. In one of the cans we found footage mentioning The German Side of the War, a movie that had been produced by the Chicago Tribune in 1915. When reeling that film on a viewer we found ourselves in underground bunkers on the Eastern Front, and that’s when we discovered the film had been misplaced. We were looking at a completely different film that was shot by Albert K. Dawson, cameraman with the Austro-Hungarian army!

Albert Dawson directing war films on eastern front 1915

My fascination with these old war films started when as a history student I first read Kevin Brownlow’s book The War, the West and the Wilderness. Kevin is one of the first historians to research World War I films. He also was fortunate enough to interview some of the cameramen who  recorded the Great War, at a time when they were still around. We dedicated our book American Cinematographers in the Great War to Kevin Brownlow because as film historians we all stand on his shoulders. These war pictures, as described by Brownlow, were a window on a different world. This was a time when cars and planes were the latest thing, when women could not vote, when it took ten days to cross the Atlantic, when trench warfare devastated a way of life that belonged to the 19th century. Despite the static shots and primitive camera technique these films and newsreels are truly mesmerizing.

The First World War was a modern war that surprised all combatants as well as the people at the home front just because it was so ‘modern’. It was also the first media war. Film propaganda was not invented by Goebbels but by Wellington House, UFA and the Committee on Public Information in America. Admittedly, wars had been filmed before 1914 but this was the first time in history when the huge publicity potential of this young medium was discovered and exploited.  As I dug deeper into my film research together with my American colleagues Cooper Graham and Jim Castellan I also got intrigued by one simple question: how did these guys do it? How did they manage lugging these cumbersome movie cameras with tripod and all to the battlefield? How did they deal with censors, military red tape and the risks of having their movie camera mistaken for the equipment of an artillery spotter? Why did they even run the risk of becoming a prime target? We were on uncharted territory basically, as most of these cameramen – like the soldiers of World War I – had slowly faded away. We interviewed relatives in the US and many of them did not even know that their Granddad had been a cameraman in World War I. But the stories that we found on their photographic work and their life are definitely worth preserving, just like their films. In some rare instances we could even match their personal story with the pictures that they made at the front. It’s a strange experience to watch a movie that was made one hundred years ago, as seen through the eyes of the cameraman you get to know so much. As a writer you feel transported back in time. For a brief moment you become the cameraman.

Just like these cameramen who had been pioneers in their trade – the first film correspondents – we had to start most of our film research from scratch. I should give proper credits here to Cooper and Jim for their outstanding work on reconstructing Wilbur H. Durborough’s  feature film, On the Firing Line with the Germans, a unique film report made during the German drive on the Eastern Front in 1915. By using the paper roll collection at the Library of Congress they managed to identify each separate scene from that movie, not including the lost scenes that were retrieved in TV documentaries and the World War I Signal Corps collection. This is another aspect of this kind of film research: how to piece all of these segments together? World War I film research is a giant jigsaw puzzle because a lot of contemporary footage has been recycled or cut into stock footage. It takes a lot of patience to get the bigger picture.

Sniper attack in Russian Poland. Scene from On The Firing Line with the Germans (USA 1915)

The last years researching World War I film have been a great ride. We have brought back on the screen Durborough’s war film which has been wonderfully restored by the Library of Congress. The premiere at the film festival of Pordenone together with Kevin Brownlow as a special guest was just great. This kind of film research never really stops, so after publishing our book we started a weblog Shooting the Great War which has the latest updates on the latest World War I films that we have found and identified. The blog has been seen now by over 100,000 people. So, we definitely have an audience out there!

Video trailer for Shooting the Great War:

Ron van Dopperen studied history at the University of Utrecht (Holland) where he wrote his Master of Arts Thesis on the American World War I documentary films. Since 2011 he publishes on World War I film, starting with a series of articles for Film History journal. He is also co-author together with Cooper C. Graham of Shooting the Great War: Albert Dawson and the American Correspondent Film Company (2013) and together with Jim Castellan and Cooper Graham of American Cinematographers in the Great War (2014) which was sponsored by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival.

Weblog: http://shootingthegreatwar.blogspot.nl

Disclaimer: The IAMHIST Blog is a platform that offers individual scholars the opportunity to present their work and thoughts. They alone are responsible for the content, which does not represent the view of the IAMHIST council or other IAMHIST members.

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