Moving and Projected Image Entertainment in the South-West 1820-1914

Lead Research Organisation: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Department Name: English

Abstract

Moving and projected images were ubiquitous forms of public recreation from the early years of the nineteenth century. Whether it was a Sunday School gathered together for a magic lantern performance, children enjoying a peepshow at a fair, a touring panorama at the local town hall, or the fascination exerted by the cinematograph at the music hall, there was a rich tradition of popular entertainment that stretched forward to the twentieth century.
Our understanding of the national distribution of these entertainments, however, is limited by a lack of systematic knowledge concerning their national distribution. This project explores the exhibition of moving and projected images in the South-West between 1820 and 1914. Through a regional case study, it seeks to fill a significant gap in the national picture by mapping the wealth of provincial entertainments. The project will also contribute to a broader reassessment of the long history of moving and projected images by demonstrating the important continuities between nineteenth-century screen entertainments and the cinema, and the way that the advent of cinema did not immediately lead to the disappearance of pre-existing screen media.
Moving and projected images were exhibited in a large range of fixed-venue and touring shows across the South-West. The research team working on the project will undertake a comparative investigation, which uses different locations as case studies to explore the factors affecting the distribution of individual entertainment types. The South-West is an ideal region for a case study of this type because it encompasses prominent cities like Bristol, which regularly received the latest London entertainments, as well as rural areas like North Devon. The South-West also presents an important contrast with the new industrial areas of the Midlands and North of England. Exeter, Bristol, and Plymouth, as urban centres, are the principal locations to be examined, but the project team will also research the sea-side resorts of North and South Devon, particularly Torquay, Exmouth, Teignmouth, and Ilfracombe.
Through tracing the exhibition of screen media in venues ranging from bazaars and fairs to music halls, the project will demonstrate their incorporation into and competition with other entertainment forms. The number of venues exhibiting moving and projecting images corresponds with their use for a variety of educational, reportage, and amusement purposes. The research team will analyse this range of subject matter and performance practices as part of its larger concern with the relationship between metropolitan and provincial entertainment. The subject matter, for example, reveals the balance between exhibitions that dealt with national and international themes and those that directly appealed to local sensibilities.
 
Title Popular Entertainment in the South West 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
 
Title Popular Visual Entertainment in the South West 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
 
Description The key finding of this grant was to reveal the richness and variety of the entertainment landscape of visual shows in the Victorian period. To date, most research has focused on London and a few other cities; our regional study was the largest in-depth study to demonstrate the commercial and institutional development of nineteenth-century picture-going.
Exploitation Route The findings from our project will help frame debates about the development of nineteenth-century visual culture and the industry of popular entertainment.
Sectors Education

Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections

 
Description Research on the project has had a considerable Impact in increasing public participation in, and appreciation of, the history and pre-history of cinema. Much of this has been achieved by collaborative projects with the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, a free-entry museum located on the Exeter campus, which has a large collection (65,000 items) of international stature. The project resulted in a series of exhibitions at libraries across the south-west as well as a number of talks and other activities. in 2011, the Bill Douglas Museum entered into a partnership with the publisher, Adam Matthew, to market a digital archive 'Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema', consisting of 35,000 images of BDM items. Plunkett was Academic Editor, responsible for overseeing image selection. Published in November 2012, it has created further international dissemination of the collection. The findings from the project also contributed to a subsequent EU grant for Joe Kember in 2015, part of a team on A Million Pictures: Magic Lantern Slide Heritage as Artefacts in the Common European History of Learning. A Million Pictures is a collaborative research project between researchers from Utrecht University (NL), University of Exeter (UK), University of Antwerp (BE), University of Girona (ES), University of Salamanca (ES) as well as twenty Associated Partners (museums, archives, curators, creative industries, researchers).
First Year Of Impact 2010
Sector Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

 
Description North Devon Fisheries Local Action Group
Amount £30,368 (GBP)
Organisation Department For Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (DEFRA) 
Department Marine Management Organisation (MMO)
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2013 
End 01/2015
 
Description Article on BBC Devon website on the project and an image gallery. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The BBC website hosted an extensive image gallery from the project, looking at the exhibition practises of 19th c popular shows.

Difficult to judge as difficult to extrapolate website hits from general website.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
URL http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/devon/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_9310000/9310113.stm
 
Description Free exhibition at Barnstaple Public Library on Popular Entertainment in the South-West 1840-1910 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This exhibition was hosted at Barnstaple Public Library from 1-30 Oct 2011.It disseminated findings from the project.

The project helped to raise awareness of the rich history of popular shows in Barnstaple and the surrounding area.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Free exhibition at Redruth Public Library on Popular Entertainment in the South-West 1840-1910 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The project displayed findings from the project relating to the rich history of popular entertainment in the south-west.

Comments in the Feedback book praised the exhibition for the information it provided about the regional history of popular exhibitions.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Free exhibition at Torquay Public Library 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The exhibition disseminated findings from the project; as Torquay was one of the case studies for the project, we were able to include information on early moving-image entertainment in the area such as lantern shows and early cinema.

The project and exhibition helped to forge an ongoing link with Torquay museum.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Free public exhibition at British City Reference Library 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This exhibition in Bristol disseminated some of the findings of the project on nineteenth-century popular entertainment in the south-west (Bristol was one of the case studies for our project). It was free and open to all visitors to City of Bristol reference library.

The exhibition helped to raise local awareness of the rich history of moving-image entertainment in Bristol.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Free public exhibition at Weston-Super-Mare Library 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The exhibition, Popular Entertainment in the South-West, disseminated findings from the project as Weston-Super-Mare was one of the locales chosen as a case study.

The exhibition ran from 15 Oct-11 Nov 2011, and was visited by several hundred people.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Lecture at Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact A lecture on Victorian exhibitions and civic culture in 19th C Exeter.

The lecture encouraged interest in the activities of the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, based on the University of Exeter campus.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Museum Exhibition on Victorian Popular Entertainment in the south-west 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The exhibition disseminated findings from the project, and was on show at the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, University of Exeter, from Oct 2010 -May 2011.

This exhibition was part of BDM's programme of on-site activities, which facilitates connections between the academy and regional community, and increases public access to the collection through temporary exhibitions, organised tours and events such as Family Fun days.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description Roundtabel Discussion with Museum Curators 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 'The Diorama in Colonial Visual Culture', Expert Roundtable at Delfina Foundation, London.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016