Mitchell & Kenyon

In 1901 people in Belfast paid their tram drivers in carrots.

A flood of Lancashire cotton workers and their children at the end of another shift.

The ornate pavilions of cinematographs, boxing booths and menageries at Hull Fair.

These slightly weary-looking soldiers, just back from South Africa, were perhaps only temporarily housed in their Cork barracks before a well-earned return home. Despite Irish misgivings, some 30,000 Irish soldiers fought in the Boer War. In a neat lesson in colonial history, the barracks were named after Queen Victoria in 1849 and rapidly re-named 'Collins Barracks' after Irish independence.

The biggest English comedy hit of the year. The scene is laid on an English estate at the edge of a pond. A couple of laborers discover, protruding from the water a pair of female legs. They hasten to the rescue, secure a bench and a long plank so as to get out over the water to the point where the legs are sticking up. Just as they complete their preparations a policeman runs up and insists on going out to the rescue of the female in distress.

A group of miners (including a sole black worker) exits the colliery gates.

It is a dramatic film, with its colossal explosion and smouldering remains. Within seconds of the chimney's collapse, crowds swarm in to inspect the site; issues of the crowd's health and safety are clearly not a concern, as people smile, wave and salute the camera.

Bustling scenes show Edwardian Derry-Londonderry before industrialisation took hold.

One long traveling shot through a sea front lined with tourists, workers, and sundry others.

An Edwardian football match at Newcastle's St James' Park ground.

It shows General Baden-Powell, hero of the Anglo-Boer war, and his family visiting Accrington.

Edwardian workers react to the camera at one of Rotherham's major employers.

A temperance society decries the demon drink on the streets of Edwardian Manchester.

This film is part of the Mitchell and Kenyon collection - an amazing visual record of everyday life in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Athletes and acrobats wow the crowds at the annual Cycling Club carnival.

A rare glimpse of early Edwardian Manchester when the horse-drawn tram still reigned supreme.

Two Boers shoot and rob a sentry.

Believed to be the first film that features Manchester United in their first season as 'Manchester United', rather than 'Newton Heath' as they were known at the time.

Kidnapping by Indians is a 1899 British silent short Western film, made by the Mitchell and Kenyon film company, shot in Blackburn, England. It is believed to be the first Western film, pre-dating Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery by four years.

A breathtaking winter journey in the Pennines, from country to town and back again via electric tram.