About the collections

Turners

Turners’ Film Unit was a production company based in Pink Lane, Newcastle from 1946 to 1995. The company was responsible for producing a variety of promotional films, advertisements, educational/ training and industrial documentaries based around the region. We hold Turners’ surviving output, around 700 productions.

Trade Films

Established in Gateshead in 1982, Trade Films Ltd focused on the social, political and economic issues affecting the North East of England and on the history of the region. The company specialised in political documentaries and TV productions. Films about mining and the trade union movement in the North East were a particular strength. NRFTA cares for over 2500 items of film whilst the company’s papers and accounts are deposited with Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums.

Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums (TWAM)

The TWAM collections consist of a number of different deposits made to Tyne and Wear Archives over a number of years. The collections relate to life and work in Newcastle upon Tyne and Tyne and Wear. The ship building industry is particularly well represented. Some of the films on deposit relate to papers housed at TWAM’s headquarters in the Discovery Museum, Newcastle.

Tyne Tees Television

The Tyne Tees Television collection is one of our largest collections. The film-based production materials cover the station launch in 1959 up until 1988. The collection comprises a wide range of material including regional news and sports items and drama and documentary series which were produced from the mid 1960s to the 1980s. Some highlights of the collection include all the original film material for the music show, The Tube, and films produced by Tyne Tees Television that formed part of the award winning documentary series, About Britain.

BBC Look North

We hold the surviving material from BBC Look North from the period when location items were shot on 16mm film, 1957 to 1991. The complete ‘programmes as broadcast’ were not recorded so the live studio links are lost. The surviving material consists of location reports and inserts. Although the run is not complete, as only material thought to have a future use for stock shots were kept, a total of 7,000 items still survive.

Industrial, Educational and Training Collections

We hold a substantial number of films related to industry in the North East. These include films which promote the work of major companies, such as Dorman Long steelworks on Teesside and Swan Hunter ship building on Tyneside. Sectors of industry are also represented in the collections, for example glass manufacture in Sunderland and the region's railway heritage. The films were made to promote individual products or to train employees in specific industrial processes.

ICI

A global giant of petro-chemical industries, ICI was also a pioneering force in film production. Its Billingham Film Unit produced a wide array of promotional and educational films which document the company’s industrial and scientific innovations as well as its massive physical expansion along Teesside. The company also ran its own series of internal news bulletins and social interest films to inform, educate, and entertain its many thousands of workers. Particular highlights of the collection include Sydney Boyle’s innovative Dufaycolor animations from the 1930s, and the run of short-form documentaries promoting ICI’s sports and social club, the Synthonia.

Amateur Film and Video

The Archive holds unique collections of amateur film and home movies dating from the late 1920s onwards. Far from the world of commercial cinema, these fascinating films provide a vivid insight into the social history of the region. Keen amateur filmmakers recorded their families, social rituals such as weddings, outings, holidays at home and abroad, personal interests and, occasionally, the workplace. Popular subjects filmed include community activities and leisure, and important regional events and celebrations such as VE Day and royal visits. Amateur collections also feature trick films, dramas and comedies, often produced with local cine clubs and exhibited to small audiences outside the home.

Some of our important home movie collections:

T. H. Brown Collection

The T. H. Brown collection contains films by three generations of the Brown family from Middlesbrough and spans the 1920s to the 1960s. In addition to footage of home life through the decades, the films cover various regional community events and national celebrations. The major part of the collection consists of films by dentist Tom H. Brown who was a founder member of the Tees-Side Cine Club and pioneer in amateur filmmaking in the North East. His early Dufaycolor films include footage of Middlesbrough celebrations marking the Silver Jubilee of King George V and Redcar for Holidays, shot in 1935, which features traditional leisure pursuits and entertainments at the resort. Other highlights of the collection are the experimental trick films and a fascinating travelogue, Behind the Iron Curtain With a Movie Camera, filmed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in 1960, a year before construction began on the Berlin Wall.

Cragside Collection

The Cragside collection features amateur film of the Armstrong family taken between the late 1920s and 1930s. The films record large family celebrations and gatherings at their homes, Bamburgh Castle on the Northumberland coast, and the parkland mansion of Cragside, Rothbury, now owned by The National Trust. In addition to providing a fascinating insight into the privileged private life of this family, the collection contains footage of the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne, Rothbury Carnival in 1931 and local village fetes hosted by the Armstrongs. The family members recorded in these films are the heirs of William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong of Cragside (1810-1900), Tyneside industrialist, inventor of the hydraulic crane and breech-loading gun, and founder of the British manufacturing company W. G. Armstrong and Co, Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1883 he presented his private land at Jesmond Dene to the Corporation of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Hayes Collection

The Hayes collection contains home movies filmed between 1936 and 1981. The bulk of the material captures Hayes-McAdam family celebrations, weddings, visits in the North East region, holidays at home and international travel. The films shot during the 1930s and 1940s that record annual outings and screen portraits of the staff at the department store J. L. McAdam Ltd. in Newcastle are a significant feature of this collection. In McAdam Staff Christmas 1936, employees at the store also perform a series of comic sketches for the camera that mock their own sales techniques.

Dr. H.B. Porteous Collection

A series of home movies of the Newcastle and Jesmond areas filmed by Dr H.B. Porteous between 1928 and 1929. Events captured included the arrival of King George V and Queen Mary for the opening of the New Tyne Bridge on the 10th October 1928 as well as the Hopping Fair on Newcastle Town Moor and the Quayside Sunday Market. The final section of the films shows various scenes before and during the North East Coast Exhibition which took place between May and October 1929.

Richardson/Wrench Collection

A series of home movies made by Robert Wrench between 1924 and 1935. Robert Wrench was the North East Regional Director of Kodak before he retired to Romford, Essex. The films include footage of his wife and family and were filmed in and around Newcastle and Whitley Bay. The collection includes footage of Jesmond Dene, Exhibition Park and Spanish City in Whitley Bay.

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