This film is part of Free
Dramatised account of Chinese rebels' violent confrontation with Christian missionaries, made in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion.
War 1900 1 mins Silent
These fictionalised scenes of Chinese 'Boxer' rebels attacking a Christian mission station were filmed by Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon in and around their home town of Blackburn. The Boxers were a Chinese secret society dedicated to expelling foreigners, particularly Christian missionaries, from China. Some of the actors here make less than convincing rebels, even dead ones!
This film was also known as Boxer Attack on a Missionary Outpost. Competing filmmaker James Williamson went to considerable lengths to ensure that his version, Attack on a China Mission, would be more dramatic, with authentic gunshots and explosions. Reconstructions of topical events like this were fairly common in early film, and Mitchell & Kenyon made several. They are sometimes described as 'fake' actuality films, although audiences were probably under no illusions that what they were seeing was genuine footage of the events depicted.
Drama 1899 2 mins Silent Location: Blackburn
Out-takes of the world's earliest ever 'Western' film.
Comedy 1901 2 mins Silent Location: Glasgow
Young scamps launch a snowball attack on a hapless bobby.
Interest film 1903 2 mins Silent
What’s in your cheese? The microscopic mites here are unpleasant today but caused a sensation in 1903, in one of the Britain’s earliest exhibited scientific films.
0 mins
Frogs legs on film: trailblazing Victorian medical research
Drama 1899 1 mins Silent
The first ever Shakespearean film - once thought to be lost - with Herbert Beerbohm Tree in the title role.
Pornography 1896 1 mins Silent
A treat for Victorian voyeurs - and Britain's oldest erotic film?
Non-Fiction 1924 12 mins Silent Location: Blackburn
A show of scouting skills in Blackburn, Lancashire.
Current affairs 1976 26 mins Location: Blackburn
A fiery and harrowing investigation into the rise of the far-right in Blackburn
Documentary 1973 17 mins Location: Mottram in Longdendale
Matchstick men and so much more - the work and world of Lawrence Stephen Lowry, recorder of the industrial north.
Amateur film 1950 12 mins Silent Location: Blackburn
Mill workers and machines - a detailed look at the Lancashire textile industry.
Documentary 1976 25 mins Location: Norwich
An enjoyably odd public information film shot on the streets of Blackburn, Norwich and Oxford.
Non-Fiction 1905 13 mins Silent Location: Blackburn
A majestic Blackpool monument to Queen Victoria is unveiled by Princess Louise.
Promotional 2019 10 mins
A wandering warrior dreams of a new form of expression, in this promo for UNKLE’s album The Road: Part II / Lost Highway Pt. II directed by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones.
1935 16 mins
A rare glimpse of 1930s London in colour: the Thames has never looked lovelier.
Advert 1946 1 mins Silent
Life is looking up! The war is over and the “Corona” Man can visit his “Corona” families once more, door-to-door.
Advert 1962 0 mins Location: Rhyl
Cinema advertisement for Marine Lake & Ocean Beach, Rhyl, a popular destination for crowds set on a day's fun on free rides.
Advert 1942 7 mins Silent Location: Blaenau Ffestiniog
Who could deny these advertising claims: "Attractive hair is the ambition of every woman", and "Your family will enjoy Lincoln potatoes"?
Advert 1955 1 mins
Operatic chickens, shrimps and salmon sing-a-long with a paste pot chorus in this vibrantly animated advert for Shippam's
Do you recognise a place, building or location in this film?
Help us populate the Britain on Film map by spotting and plotting the street or location you know. This is a BFI project and anyone can help.
Go to our Britain on Film crowdsourcing site and contribute to our mapping mission – to identify locations within our archive films.
Add a location
