British Pathé was an offshoot of the company Pathé Freres, founded by the Pathé brothers Charles, Emile, Theophile and Jacques in France in 1896. In 1908 the company launched the first newsreel, which became Pathé Journal in 1909, and the next year opened offices in the United States and London. Britain's first newsreel, Pathé's Animated Gazette, began in 1910 – first weekly, but later fortnightly. All three offices produced films around four minutes in length and shared material in their newsreels. Competitors quickly appeared, and include the Gaumont Graphic and Topical Budget. The Topical Budget was taken over by the War Office in 1917. Examples of both these other newsreels can be seen elsewhere on this website. All of these “saw themselves as film equivalents of the popular photo-illustrated newspapers, such as the Daily Mirror and the Daily Sketch, and the six newsreels that were operating in Britain at the outset of the war each took their names from newspapers, to make the connection clear” [1]

Luke Mckernan provides a good description of their content, format and mode of presentation:

“The reels were between five and ten minutes in length, contained five to eight stories, and at this period of cinema history they were silent. There was no sound technology available, so the films were shown with descriptive titles and live music. They focussed on visual, light news, favouring sports, parades, traditions, fashion, celebrities and royalty.” [2]

From 1918 the parent company Pathé split into separate divisions, leading to “the first steps towards the splintering of the company that can cause endless headaches for anyone attempting to trace the evolution of the Pathé brand.” [3]. More recently, the entire collection has been digitised and is available to view on Youtube. In 2014-2015 Nga Taonga Sound & Vision acquired a significant number of British Pathé films which feature New Zealand and New Zealand troops made during the war; these are available to view on this website, and via Nga Taonga’s online catalogue (www.ngataonga.org.nz/collections/search).

The London office of Pathé had a particularly close relationship to New Zealand during the war, drawing on earlier work Pathé had done for the New Zealand Government. During the war Henry “Harry” Sanders was commissioned as NZEF cameraman, after an earlier arrangement made with the War Office Cinematograph Committee to share a cameraman with the Australians fell through; Sanders had worked before the war as editor of the Gazette, and he returned to that role after his demobilisation in 1919. The New Zealand Government was given all rights to the material that Sanders shot, after it had been cleared by the Censor at the War Office, while Pathé were allowed to use the material in their newsreels. Later, in November 1917, a similar arrangement was made and another Pathé staff member, Tommy Scales, became Official Cameraman of the NZEF in the UK.

With two cameramen working there was a constant stream of material, either New Zealand Government films or in Pathé Animated Gazettes showing in New Zealand theatres — though much of it captured events far from the battlefield, such as soldiers resting, on leave or at play. New Zealand rugby teams were a popular drawcard for all three newsreel companies throughout the war. While little of the material Scales shots survives, there is much material of troops behind the lines captured by Sanders in the collection of Nga Taonga Sound & Vision. Both cameramen were also responsible for capturing still images, and these make up the H-Series negatives and albums held first by the Dominion Museum, then the RSA, and now freely available to view and re-use at the National Library of New Zealand [4].

[1] Luke McKernan "Newsreels and World War I", Talk given at 'Picturing Propaganda: A Study Day', British Library Conference Centre, 1 June 2013

[2] ibid

[3] History of British Pathé

[4] Photographing New Zealanders at War, WW100 website