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Acres, Birt, 1854 - 1918

 Person

Dates

  • Existence: 1854 - 1918

Biography

Birt Acres (1854-1918) was born 23rd July 1854 in Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A; a location which his parents emigrated to, in the middle of the nineteenth century, from England. Later the family moved to North Carolina where they had bought a tobacco and cotton plantation, which they lost at the outbreak of the American civil war. Both parents lost their lives while defending the plantation and Acres was left an orphan, at the care of his wealthy aunt in Virginia, aged 10.

Acres showed an interest in inventions from an early age and his aunt, who by then had adopted him, sent him to Paris to study art and science at the Sorbonne Art Studios. While in France, Acres became fascinated with moving images and started to experiment with photography and multi-lens cameras.

On his return to America, eager to prove that he was not dependent on his aunt’s fortune, Acres initiated a journey through the American wilderness as a Frontiersman, trading with Native American tribes and working in lumber camps. Around 1880, Acres decided to return to England to set up a photography and painting studio for the production of portraits in Ilfracombe, Devon. Acres was a keen photographer with a special interest in the chemical and technical processes, which he strived to improve.

Once in England, Acres started to write articles for specialist journals and give lectures. He soon established a reputation for himself as a photographer, inventor and innovator.

In 1891, Acres married Annie Elizabeth Cash (born 1864), whose brother Edward, became the first travelling cameramen in India, under Acres’ tutorship. Acres and Elizabeth had a son, Sidney, and two daughters.

In 1892, while giving a lecture to the Camera Club in Keystone, Acres caught the attention of Hubert Elliott, the leading manufacturer of photographic plates and printing paper, at the time. He offered Acres a position as manager with Elliott & Son, in Barnet, North London. Acres accepted the job and the family moved to Clovelly Cottage, near the factory.

Acres, who was a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, had an interest in taking images of nature and specially producing sequences of cloud formations and waves breaking onto shore at short intervals, which he used to formulate his time-lapse studies. After much experimentation, Acres devised a rapid lantern slide changer, with which he could project successfully a sequential series of photographs creating the impression of motion and anticipating the invention of moving pictures. Acres patented his machine in December 1893 and successfully presented one such sequence to the Royal Photographic Society, of which he was a member.

At the end of 1894 Acres met Robert W. Paul, who was making copies of Edison’s kinetoscopes in the UK. Robert Paul was interested in creating a camera to make films to show on Edison’s Kinetoscopes. Up until then, Edison had controlled the market by only supplying films to operators of his machine. Working in partnership, Acres and Paul built a camera. This was used by Acres to shoot the first successful film made in Britain; ‘Incident in Clovelly Cottage’, in March 1895. The creation of this film made Acres the first man to successfully take and project a 35mm film in England. In the same year, Paul and Acres entered a short partnership, during which Acres shot films of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, and the Derby, as well as simple comic, dramatic and actuality subjects. These included; ‘The Arrest of a Pickpoket’, ‘The Boxing Kangaroo’, ‘Performing Bears’ and ‘The Comic Shoeblack’.

After the partnership between Acres and Paul ended acrimoniously, Acres was contacted by Ludwin Sotllwerk, a German chocolate manufacturing company interested in expanding their supply of film subjects for their Kinetoscope shows. By this time Acres was completely committed to this new enterprise and had already resigned from Elliott & Son, setting up his own company, ‘The Northern Photographic Works’ at 45 Salisbury Road, High Barnet, where he specialised in coating, perforating and processing film. In 1895 Acres was invited to visit Germany to film the opening of the Kiel Canal and the Kaiser. The resulting films were shown in Koster & Bial’s Music Hall in the famous first film show of April 1896.

Upon his return to England, Acres started to work on the construction of his own design for a projector, known as the Kinetic Lantern, The Kineopticon or the Cinematoscope. Acres used his new device in a public lecture at the Royal Photographic Society in London, on 14 January 1896, just weeks before the first screening of the Lumiere Cinematorgraphe at the Polytechnic Institution. Shortly after, Acres started to give commercial projections at Piccadilly Mansions, London. The Kineopticon was the first successful cinematograph camera made in Britain and one of the first in Europe.

Invited by the Cardiff Photographic Society, Acres presented several of his films at the Cardiff Exhibition of 1896. While there, he took the opportunity to film the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales. While seeking permission to publically exhibit the film, Acres was requested to give a performance by Royal Command before multiple members of the European Royal Families, on 21st July 1896 at Marlborough House.

Acres, wanting to improve on his invention and eliminate the jerkiness on his early projections, continued to develop his kineopticon until patenting a new cinematograph system in 1897. In 1898 he also patented the Birtac Home Cinema; a machine for taking and projecting films for the home enthusiast.

In the following years The Northern Photographic Works expanded into new premises and was renamed Whetstone Photographic Works Ltd.

Acres continued inventing and innovating photographic and moving image material all his life. This included the Electroscope; a viewing machine with a built-in-screen, able to project two films alternately upon successive coins being inserted, the Serikon film; which was supplied in rolls up to three hundred feet in length, without joints or seams, and was produced on seasoned celluloid, using an emulsion of Acres’ own recipe, and his last film invention, a slitting machine.

Although Acres enjoyed great success during his career, he saw film as more than entertainment and tried to exploit it mainly on photographic and educational markets. He invested much of his time in lecturing to scientific and photographic societies, which brought him professional recognition but impacted on his profits. By the end of the nineteenth century his business started to decline and by 1909 he was bankrupt.

Acres died in December 1918 of peritonitis, aged 64.

Found in 51 Collections and/or Records:

Arrest of a Pickpocket Film, April 1895

 Item
Reference code: 178D12.1
Scope and Contents

Nitrate format. Short film by Robert Paul and Birt Acres in which a man is pursued by a constable, runs right across the picture, they struggle together and the policeman’s helmet is knocked off, then the pickpocket, by slipping out of his jacket, manages to escape, but runs into the arms of a sailor, with whose assistance he is arrested.

Dates: April 1895

Arthur Melbourne-Cooper Visits Sidney Acres Interview, 1956

 Item
Reference code: 178E12.10
Scope and Contents

Audio cassette tape. Arthur Melbourne-Cooper visits Sidney Acres, Southend.

Dates: 1956

Audio Material, 1956 - 1999

 Series
Reference code: 178E12.1-11
Scope and Contents

Various interviews, eight of them related to recordings conducted by Tjitte de Vries with Brit Acres' and Melbourne-Cooper's descendants and relations.

178E12.10 digitised as part of the British Library's Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

Dates: 1956 - 1999

Audrey Wadowski with Fred Taylor, Gordon Fisher and Reg Shircliffe, on Birt Acres and Alpha Films Interview, 1962 - 1963

 Item
Reference code: 178E12.8
Scope and Contents

Audio cassette tape number T042. Audrey Wadowski with Fred Taylor, Gordon Fisher and Reg Shircliffe, on Birt Acres and Alpha Films, Barnet, St. Albans. Part of eight cassette recordings of Tjitte de Vries of Birt Acres and Melbourne-Cooper relations. Copy from Tjitte de Vries, Arthur Melbourne-Cooper Archive.

Dates: 1962 - 1963

Birt Acres Collection

 Fonds
Reference code: NFA0055
Scope and Contents

This collection contains a small amount of archival items and artefacts which belonged to Birt Acres and his son Sidney Birt Acres. The collection also includes books on early cinema, which were used as research material by Alan Acres, while writing ‘Frontiersman to Film-Maker’, and represent the archive created in the process.

Dates: c1870 - 2005

Birt Acres Film Pioneer 1854 - 1918 Scrapbook, c1900 - 1999

 Item
Reference code: 178G39.3
Scope and Contents

Scrapbook copy of the ‘Black Book’ entitled Birt Acres Film Pioneer 1854-1918 containing photocopies of newspaper cuttings and photographs and typed news reports and some material on the Cinema Veterans annual reunion. Press cuttings collected by Birt Acres wife who continued to update it until her death in the 1950's. Subsequent additions were by Birt's daughter-in-law Phyllis.

Dates: c1900 - 1999

Boxing Kangaroo Film, May - June 1895

 Item
Reference code: 178D12.2
Scope and Contents

Nitrate film by Robert Paul and Birt Acres, filmed on a small wooden stage, showing a brief scene of a boxing bout between a boy and a kangaroo and refereed by possibly the animal trainer or showman, who appears to the left of the pugilists.

Dates: May - June 1895

Boxing Match Film, c1895 - 1896

 Item
Reference code: 178D12.5
Scope and Contents

Nitrate film by Birt Acres, showing an outdoor boxing match and ringside onlookers. Possibly Acres’ Boxing Match film in August 1896 or Boxing Match/Boxing Contest filmed in 1895.

Dates: c1895 - 1896

Business Records, c1880 - 1969

 Series
Reference code: 178H23
Scope and Contents

Business Records related to the film industry.

Dates: c1880 - 1969

Chemical Balance, c1870 - 1918

 Item
Reference code: 178Z48.3
Scope and Contents

Small wooden and brass balance and six weights belonging to Birt Acres.

Dates: c1870 - 1918

Chemical Balance, c1870 - 1918

 Item
Reference code: 178Z48.4
Scope and Contents

Birt Acres’ chemical balance, collapsible wooden and brass balance with drawer containing different components, weights and tweezers.

Dates: c1870 - 1918

Cooper visits Sidney Birt Acres and BBC Interview of Arthur Melbourne Cooper, 20 July 1958

 Item
Reference code: 178E12.3
Scope and Contents

Audio cassette tape number T001. Side A: A.M. Cooper visits. Sidney B. Acres, Southend 1956 Side B: BBC interview of A.M. Cooper interviewed by Ernest Lindgren Bush House. Part of eight cassette recordings of Tjitte de Vries of Birt Acres and Melbourne-Cooper relations. Tape N.R. VI and XII. Copy from Tjitte de Vries, Arthur Melbourne-Cooper Archive.

Dates: 20 July 1958

Correspondence, 1897 - 2010

 Series
Reference code: 178F30
Scope and Contents

Various items of correspondence related to Birt Acres' business and correspondence about his life and career.

Dates: 1897 - 2010

Correspondence between Mr and Mrs Alan Birt Acres and Dr. Hauke Lange-Fuchs, 1994 - 2002

 File
Reference code: 178F30.2
Scope and Contents

Correspondence between Mr and Mrs A. B. Acres and Dr. Hauke Lange-Fuchs regarding the work of Birt Acres, part of Alan’s research for Frontiersman to Film-maker book. Ring binder containing letters and transparencies.

Dates: 1994 - 2002

Family Group Film, c July 1895

 Item
Reference code: 178D12.4
Scope and Contents

Nitrate film by Birt Acres, showing partial fragments of of a family group, possibly members of the Acres family.

Dates: c July 1895

Film, 1895

 Series
Reference code: 178D15
Scope and Contents

Copies of the Opening of the Kiel Canal film.

Dates: 1895

Film, 1894 - 1896

 Series
Reference code: 178D12
Scope and Contents

Nitrate films made by Robert Paul and Birt Acres, showing brief scenes of topical events, popular entertainmet, family groups and fiction. These films were part of the repertoire travelled by showman George Williams around the British fairs.

Dates: 1894 - 1896

Formulae Notebook, c1880 - 1969

 Item
Reference code: 178P8.3
Scope and Contents

Notebook on making film stock entitled formulae, containing multiple loose notes.

Dates: c1880 - 1969

George Williams Collection

 Fonds
Reference code: NFA0118
Scope and Contents

Collection of early films related to the first year of film-making in America and the United Kingdom and nineteenth century magic lantern slides, letter, film catalogues and photographic plates.

Dates: 1890 - 1896

Interview of Audrey Wadoski with A.M. Cooper, c1900 - 1999

 Item
Reference code: 178E12.2
Scope and Contents

Audio cassette tape number T047. Audrey Wadoski with A.M. Cooper, Coton on B. Acres start filming Bertha Randall, mail trains upside down camera, etc. Part of eight cassette recordings conducted by Tjitte de Vries with Birt Acres' and Melbourne-Cooper' descendants and relations. Tape N.R. XV,. Disc 10, Band 15a, WAV, 194 Mb, 37 mins (a+b). Copy from Tjitte de Vries, Arthur Melbourne-Cooper Archive.

Dates: c1900 - 1999