The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Women's Institute Sports Day at Horton Grange
Sisters of the Womens Institute descend on a Tyneside publishers mansion for some vigorous sports day fun.
From the collection of:
Overview
Girls just want to have fun! Sir Joseph Reed, the Newcastle Daily Chronicle publisher was on hand to film local members of the Womens Institute, including Lady Reed and daughter, enjoying silly sports and a silver service lunch in the 1930s at his Dinnington mansion, Horton Grange. This engaging home movie also captures the spirited performance of a visiting Northumbrian rapper sword dance troupe.
Sir Joseph Reed, a printers devil at age 14 and knighted in 1922 for his services to the Press Association and newspaper industry in general, was part-proprietor and MD of the Newcastle broadsheet Daily Chronicle, launched on 1 May 1858 by Radical politician, journalist and Newcastle MP, Joseph Cowen. Also a progressive force and radical social network during a repressive era, despite its jambuster image, the Womens Institute Movement in Britain numbered former suffragettes Edith Rigby and Grace Hadow, and social reformer Lady Gertrude Denman (first Chairman of the Family Planning Association), amongst its first representatives.
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