A chronology of Manchester's Film History compiled by CP Lee. Comments and/or additional material welcome - CONTACT
(This page updated 22-Mar-2012)

MANCHESTER FILM HISTORY

1896 - 1900 THE BEGINNING ...  next Manchester film history   Manchester FIlm Home Button

On 4th May 1896 Julian Tewey presented the first ever film show in Manchester, the Lumieres’ Train Arriving At A Station at the St James Theatre, Oxford Street (see photo below). It was such a success that it transferred to the Lesser Free Trade Hall on Peter Street where it stayed for several years ...

BIRTHS (significant film actors or filmmakers born up to and including 1900):
1862 - Actor C. Hayden Coffin born on 22 April in Manchester (d. 8 Dec 1935).
1863 - Actor Wilfred Shine born on 12 July in Manchester (d. 14 Mar 1939).
1872 - Actor Sidney Ainsworth born 21 December in Manchester (d. 21 May 1922). He appeared in over 50 films, 81 titles.
1876 - Screenwriter John Hay Beith (Ian Hay) born 17 April (d. 22 Sep 1952). Worked with Hitchcock and Robert Donat.
1878 - Actor Gordon James born in Manchester on 22 July as Sydney Lynn, elder brother of Ralph Lynn, he appeared in some twenty films including The Young Mr Pitt (1942). (Date and place of death unknown).
1882 - Actor Ralph Lynn born 8 March in Manchester (d. 8 Aug 1962).
1883 - Actor Leonard Mudie born 11 April in Cheetham Hill (d. 14 Apr 1965). A stalwart acting veteran, he made nearly 150 appearances before the camera.1889 - Actor Will Hay born (d. 18 Apr 1949). Though born in Stockton-on-Tees, he based and developed his dotty schoolmaster characterisation on stories told to him by his sister, a school teacher in Cheetham Hill. His early years were spent working as an engineering apprentice in his father's company in Manchester.
1892 - Actor Kathleen Harrison born in Blackburn on 23 February (d. 7 Dec 1995) - her prolific output included playing Mrs Huggett alongside Jack Warner and Petula Clark, starring with Robert Donat in The Winslow Boy (1948) and being Mrs Dilber in A Christmas Carol (1951).
1895 - Screenwriter Louis Golding born in Manchester on 19 November (d. 9 Aug 1958).
1895 - Actor Robbie Vincent born Vincent Robinson in Manchester on 22 December (d. 6 Mar 1968).
1896 - Writer Dodie Smith born Dorothy Gladys Smith on 3 May in Whitefield (d. 24 Nov 1990) - Wrote One Hundred and One Dalmations.
1896 - Actor Beatrice Varley born Manchester on 11 July (d. 4 Jul 1964).
1896 - Actor George Desylia Zucco born Manchester on 11 January (d. 27 May 1960) - an English character actor who appeared, almost always in supporting roles, in 96 films 1931 to 1951.
1897 - Dramatist Ronald Gow born in Heaton Moor on 1 November (d. 27 Apr 1993) - wrote Love On The Dole, the stage play of which starred his wife Wendy Hiller who also appeared in the Gow-scripted film Lancashire Luck.
1898 - Actor Dame Gracie Fields born Grace Stansfield in Rochdale on 9 January (d. 27 Sept 1979).
1898 - Actor Violet Carson born 1 September in Ancoats (d. 26 Dec 1983) - played Ena Sharples in Manchester's Coronation Street from 1960 to 1980.
1900 - Filmmaker Bernard Knowles born 20 February in Manchester (d. 12 Feb 1975). In 1935 Knowles worked with Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Donat on The 39 Steps.

  

  free trade hall rear

- or visit another place of interest for Manchester Film fans - www.itsahotun.com

MANCHESTER FILM HISTORY established 2011.