Living Wigan
About Living Wigan
In August 1902 a camera faces Wigan's town centre as a steam tram of Wigan Corporation Tramways pulls away and a crowd presses in. A man with a hose sprays the onlookers. People turn between the lens and the spray, some playing to the camera and some watching the hose.
More about Living Wigan
Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon filmed it. It was shown at Wigan Town Hall in August 1902, before local celebrations of Edward VII's coronation, inside a two-hour program called Live in Wigan, presented by Ralph Pringle, who can be seen at the back of the shot.
Themes
Look
Mitchell and Kenyon photographed the marketplace themselves, encouraging the crowd to look into the lens.
Preservation
The negative is in the BFI National Archive, as part of the Mitchell and Kenyon collection.
Notes
- The tramway had just passed to Wigan Corporation in 1902, after the Wigan & District company.
- The hose gag is the showman's insert, set against a street that was also being recorded as a local event.
Scenes
- The steam tram moves off through the market crowd.
- A hose is turned on the people nearest the camera.