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The entire 3500 hour British Pathe Film Archive, which covers news, sport, social history and entertainment from 1896 to 1970, in now available online. Low-res previews of all the material is available for free, and high-res copies are available for license.
What is British Pathe?
- British Pathe are one of the oldest media companies in the world.
Their roots lie in 1890s Paris where their founder, Charles Pathe, pioneered the development of the moving image.
They were established in London in 1902, and by 1910 were producing their famous bi-weekly newsreel the Pathe Gazette. After the First World War they started producing various Cinemagazines as well. By 1930 they were producing the Gazette, the Pathetone Weekly, the Pathe Pictorial and Eve’s Film Review, covering entertainment, culture and womens’ issues.
By the time Pathe finally stopped producing the cinema newsreel in 1970 they had accumulated 3500 hours of filmed history amounting to over 90,000 individual items.
Over the last 30 years this material has been used extensively around the world in television programmes, home videos, advertisments, corporate productions and, most recently, in web publishing.
Through the generosity of the Lottery Funded New Opportunities Fund it was possible to build this web site, and to encode the library for digital distribution.
The “Lucky Dip” random clip generator is fun. Check it out.
