British Pathé Archive

Self-portrait

British Pathé is considered to be the finest newsreel archive in the world and is a treasure trove of 85,000 films unrivalled in their historical and cultural significance.

Spanning the years from 1896 to 1976, the collection includes footage from around the globe of major events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, science and culture.

Over the last 40 years, this material has been used extensively by broadcasters, production companies, corporations, publishers, teachers and museums, among many others.

The entire archive is available to view online for free via the British Pathé website and YouTube channel.

http://www.britishpathe.com/pages/who-we-are

Description

The British Pathé Archive is an online film archive from the British Pathé production company, comprised of 90,000 pieces of work produced between 1896 and 1976, distributed by companies, museum, advertisers and educators, constituting an archive of global historical value on a diversity of themes, such as culture, science, occurrences, personalities and fashion.

British Pathé was born in 1910 when, prior to the advent of television, filmmaker Charles Pathé introduced the cinema newsreel to the United Kingdom, with the purpose of showing the public filmed news at the movie theater. Newsreels showed political events and scenes from the lives of important personalities, shaping a kind of cinematic journalism that documented important moments in the national and international memory. With funding from the UK National Lottery, the archive was digitized in 2002, and in 2010 it launched an online entertainment website serving the general public and the communications industry.

The archives include footage as old as the first motion picture images filmed in 1888 by Louis Le Prince in Leeds, footage from the following years documenting Victorian life, the 1908 Olympics, Captain Scott’s voyage to Antarctica and World Wars I & II.

The site can be browsed by keywords, using advanced search filters or by category (Entertainment & Humor, Fashion & Music, Historical Figures & Celebrities, Lifestyle & Culture, Religion & Politics, Science & Technology, Sport & Leisure, Trade & Industry, Travel & Exploration, War & Revolution).

Users can purchase nearly any film for viewing or educational purposes, but not for modification. Given that most footage is not in the public domain, using it requires a license that can be acquired for a fee. Schools are eligible for a subscription service with unlimited access to material for non-commercial use within the classroom, as well as access to professor-created collections.

Links

URL: http://www.britishpathe.com/

Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20150730174148/http://www.britishpathe.com/

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathé_News