Darren Vidler’s great great uncle was a master of cinematography who toured Britain with an ingenious device that entertained thousands, says Gail Dixon
Cinema was one of the major world-changing innovations of the late Victorian era. From the mid-1890s, crowds flocked to music halls and converted shops to gaze in wonder at animated images.
Alfred Henry Vidler was a pioneer of British film-making who became so successful that he was able to found his own cinema. During his career he filmed and showcased events ranging from coronations and troop movements, to horse fairs and foundrymen.
Alfred is the great great uncle of Darren Vidler, who is fascinated by his relation’s role in history. “After I discovered that Alfred was a cinematographer, I contacted a local researcher named Kate and she sent me a number of newspaper articles about him,” Darren explains.
Alfred was born in 1864 in Maidstone, Kent, to sawyer Thomas Vidler and his wife Letitia. He attended school and began work at the age of 11 as an apprentice print compositor. His career as a printer’s machinist and mender spanned about 35 years.
In 1884, he married Elizabeth Jane Carter in Reigate, Surrey, and they had two children, Elizabeth and James. Darren was intrigued to find a record on Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) that revealed Alfred divorced Elizabeth for adultery in 1888.
Alfred had a lifelong fascination with the moving image, and in the 1890s bought a kinetoscope. This was essentially a cabinet within which a strip of photographic film showing a sequence of images passed rapidly before a light, creating the illusion that the subject is moving. The film could only be viewed by one person at a time via a peephole.
Alfred toured fairs and events across Britain with his kinetoscope, and found a captive audience. He later bought his own movie camera, and began projecting images onscreen.
He filmed beauty spots in Britain, and Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.
“He also recorded soldiers leaving for and returning from the Second Boer War, footage I’d really love to see,” Darren reveals.
In the 1890s, Alfred moved to Lincoln for work and he would go on to transform the city’s entertainment industry. Ever the innovator, he was recognised for showcasing ‘singing pictures’ in Lincoln in 1901, which were precursors of the ‘talkies’.
To achieve this he bought a phonograph, to reco
