Once Upon a Time in the North-west
Anthony Smith investigates the unusual story of the world’s first western
This year marks the 125th anniversary of what is considered to be the oldest surviving fictional western film. However, the 1899 production of Kidnapped By Indians was not made in the rugged terrain of America’s wild west but rather on a wooded hill on the edge of Blackburn, Lancashire.
The one-minute silent film was among hundreds of reels of film discovered by workmen renovating the basement of 40 Northgate, Blackburn, the premises where pioneering filmmakers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon were once based. The reels had been stored in three metal drums and were saved from the scrap man by Peter Worden, a local optometrist and fellow of the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers.
The discovery of the cache of late Victorian and Edwardian films made news around the world and their subsequent acquisition by the British Film Institute in 2000 has led to a major revaluation of Mitchell and Kenyon’s contribution to film-making in the United Kingdom.
Kidnapped By Indians was one of several films acquired at auction by the Cinema Museum in 1995. In 1997, the Cinema Museum was awarded the Haghefilm prize at Le Giornate del cinema muto (the Pordenone Silent Film Festival) for the restoration of the films, which were then shown at the festival the following year. Despite also enjoying screenings at the BFI Southbank, the Electric Palace, Harwich and the Cinema Museum itself, Kidnapped By Indians importance as the first western wasn’t realised until 2019 when artist Jamie Holman was trawling the BFI’S records for the works of Mitchell and Kenyon.
Here, he discovered Kidnapping By Indians, a two-minute reel of “abortive” material shot for Kidnapped By Indians. Realising that this predated Edwin S Porter’s The Great Train Robbery –
previously thought to be the first of its genre – by four years, Holman continued his research.
He uncovered stories of Lancashire weavers travelling to the United States and bringing back stories of the wild west. There had even been deputation from the Confederacy, which had attempted to gain the support of Blackburn’s mill workers who instead declared their solidarity for Abraham Lincoln and his campaign to abolish slavery. These stories would have filtered down to a young Mitchell and Kenyon and informed one of the first fiction films for their production company, Norden.
“Mitchell and Kenyon would have been aware of the appetite for the wild west at the time,” said Jamie Holman of the film, which sees a young girl kidnapped by native Americans and quickly rescued in a gunfight. “Many of the stereotypes are there: the headdress; the tomahawks.”
As artist in residence at the British Textile Biennial 2019, a series of events held across east Lancashire, Holman produced a banner celebrating Mitchell and Kenyon’s legacy. Featuring native Americans, power looms and the famous scene from the film Parkgate Iron and Steel Co, Rotherham (1901) of a worker giving the V-sign to the camera, the banner was paraded through Blackburn to close the biennial. Starting at 40 Northgate and taking in a western reenactment, the parade ended with a screening of Kidnapped By Indians at the town’s Cotton Exchange.
Jamie Holman has continued to feature Mitchell and Kenyon and Kidnapped By Indians in his work, with the most recent being Quiver, a collaboration with specialist artist Ella Mackintosh to provide a permanent memorial to the first western. Set into the gable end of the terrace of shops containing 40 Northgate, Quiver features 40 pewter arrows, which were cast by community groups and individual volunteers after watching the film and discussing its context.
Speaking prior to Quiver’s installation, Jamie Holman said: “We have a rich and diverse cultural heritage in Blackburn with Darwen as a consequence of our industrial heritage, which includes the founding of the football league, mill poetry, painting and music.
“We knew that Mitchell and Kenyon were important film-makers, but we are proud to commemorate that the world’s first western was made here in the town centre. It’s an extraordinary story that I am proud to tell on their behalf.”
For more on Jamie Holman’s work and to see Kidnapped By Indians, go to jamieholman.com/the-kidnappers The earlier Kidnapping By Indians is available at player.bfi.org.uk