Introduction
Entering the cinema industry quite late in it the film story and at the beginning of the digital, the development of cinema interests me, linked to this my involvement with the Projected Picture Trust and it’s Museum of Cinema Technology and it is probably little wonder that I have an interest in the early days of cinema, right from when the new art form was being introduced to the UK. Part of my interest is related to my view that we are coming full circle again. Below is really a short summary about the Biosopes and where they came from, along with a reasonable set of references and links to obtain further information on the subject. As time and knowledge becomes available this section will be added to.
“A Bioscope show was a fairground attraction consisting of a travelling cinema. The heyday of the Bioscope was from the late 1890s until World War I. Bioscope shows were fronted by the largest fairground organs,[1] and these formed the entire public face of the show . A stage was usually in front of the organ, and dancing girls would entertain the crowds between film shows.[2] Films shown in the Bioscope were primitive, and the earliest of these were made by the showmen themselves. Later, films were commercially produced. Bioscope shows were integrated, in Britain at least, into the Variety shows in the huge Music Halls which were built at the end of the nineteenth century. After the Music Hall Strike of 1907 in London, bioscope operators set up a trade union to represent them. There were about seventy operators in London at this point.” Entry taken from WIKIPEDIA.
The Fairground Heritage Trust, has a potted history of the Bioscope Show here. and it is generaly considered, according to the National Fairground Archive, that Randall Williams was “as the first showman to introduce moving pictures to the fair going public” when his show open on the 14th February in King’s Lynn.
Much of the development of cinema and people’s first experience of moving pictures can be taken back to Bioscopes, often found as part of Fun Fairs which travelled around the country demonstrating this new technology. Starting off small and in a very basic way, often with just a tent and a few stalls, slowly over time this grew and developed so that the Bioscope Shows at the fairs were a very elaborate affair, as these two videos demonstrate very clearly:
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Bioscope shows went on until the First World War at which point for various reasons they died out. The other reasons was of course the 1909 Cinematograph Act, no information is available here.
While Bioscopes have largely died out, there are just one or two which survive today and can still be seen. One is located at the Hollycombe Steam Museum, and is open most Sundays: http://www.hollycombe.co.uk/attractions/steam_at_the_fair/bioscope along with a few based in Dorset which go to the Dorset Steam Fair each year.
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However, I think it is interesting that we are beginning to see the travelling Bioscope Show back at the Fun Fair today, all be it in a slightly different style. Here is an image from the 2012 Winter Wonderland in London, where there is a 5D cinema as part of the fair.
References:
Below are a number of places to obtain further information on the Bioscope:
One of the best references available relating to Bioscopes is available in this book, The Travelling Cinematograph Show by Kevin Scrivens and Stephen Smith, published by New Era Publications 1999, 180pp Softback – ISBN 0 9535067 0 2 – Fully illustrated throughout
- Fairground National Archive
- VINTAGE FAIRGROUND AMUSEMENTS HERITAGE PAGE
- A potted history of fairground Bioscope Shows
- ALF BALL’S NEW LYCEUM BIOSCOPE SHOW c.1908
- Telling the Tale
- Charles Urban, Motion Picture Pioneer
- William Keating Collection photograph, Wilmot’s Bioscope, circa 1909.
- The Beginnings of the Cinema in England, 1894-1901: 1900
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William Haggar: Fairground Film Maker By Peter Yorke
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