Posted on 10/24/2008 9:39:38 PM PDT by 6SJ7
A historian has discovered film footage of Edwardian London that includes fascinating snapshots of people going about their everyday lives.
The film was shot in 1904 as a 'travelogue' for Australians curious about life in what was "one of the most exciting cities anywhere", according to Professor Ian Christie. He discovered the 12 minute reel while trawling through archives in Canberra. Prof Christie said: "It's a rather clever mixture of what we would expect to see - such as the Embankment, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square - but it also has these wonderful close ups of individuals.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Hey, at least it's not yet another poll! ;-)
That is pretty cool. I wish I could see more than just the one minute clip!
Ping
Wow! Way Kool!!
I would love to see it too...London WITHOUT a single mosque.
Times were different back then.
Cool.
I was just thinking something along those same lines - London when it was still English.
Fascinating! It looks just like it does in my head while reading Sherlock Holmes stories.
“I have often walked... down this street before...”
I’ve been looking at it. Thinking about things.
There are no motor vehicles. Even the double-decker bus is horse-drawn. The smell of the poo from all those horses must have been overpowering.
None of the people in it, except maybe the baby-in-arms during the girls’ dance, is still alive. Probably not the baby either.
The little boys posing on the bridge and jumping in the river would have been of military age, if not at the outbreak of WWI, then at least at its end. Survivors might have formed the backbone of Britain’s WWII strength.
The only functioning airplane in existence was owned by two brothers in Dayton, Ohio.
Hitler was 15 or 16; his father had just died the previous year, and this year he would drop out of school.
Winston Churchill met his furure wife at a dinner.
I’ll let others add as they see fit.
“Feed the birds, twopence a bag...”
Jeez, you are a downer.
And I’m sure half the children you see in the clip died of whooping cough or scarlet fever or measles or polio or tuberculosis before they made it to eighteen.
There, feel better?
Here is a bit more of that time-
Those WACKY Edwardians~
“The people you see here lived in the time of King Edward.
Rich or poor, handsome or ugly, they are all equal now.”
Oops- bad link its the top left Swimming Gala-
ping
I was told by an elderly gentleman years ago that the reason was that if you were photographed smiling, it was thought the people would think you were a fool.
It is interesting looking back. There it was, just 10 years before The Great War, and as you say, many of those young boys probably fought and died in that war that in 1910 was not even a glimmer on the horizon. It is bittersweet to see those images.
I prefer to think that most of them, except war caualties, lived long, productive, even happy lives. The film captures a moment so long ago that anyone over five years old was born in the nineteenth century, and to expect them to last into the 21st would be wishful thinking at best.
Historical perspective is a dish best seasoned with truth, sweet and bitter.
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