Topical Budget newsreels comprised of a single reel of film containing around five or six 'topical news' stories that would play in cinemas across the country as part of the general entertainment programme between 1911 and 1931.
The pre-eminent newsreel of the 1910s and 20s, Topical Budget was similar to its main competitors, Pathe and Gaumont, in its emphasis on amusement - the films avoided controversy, preferring to support the political and social status quo.
Nevertheless, Topical Budget newsreels offer a snapshot of Britain in all its diversity - from the 'furry dance' of the Cornish Spring Festival to the opening of the Empire Exhibition by King George V in 1924.
More importantly, while newsreel editors happily covered the Eaton Wall Game or celebrated Shakespeare's birthday, their films also bore witness to some of the major political and social changes in the early decades of the twentieth century - women's fight for suffrage, the partition of Ireland and, of course, the First World War.
In fact, Topical Budget got closer than any other newsreel to the front lines after negotiations with the War Office Cinematograph Committee (WOCC) led to the establishment of the War Office Official Topical Budget in May 1917.
Topical Budget's coverage of WWI proved a valuable resource in the History classroom with three separate items used as the basis of three individual lessons. 'Memorial Service for Nurse Cavell' (1915) and 'Lusitania Day' (1916) both offer a way in to looking at the nature of British anti-German propaganda and the various audiences that it sought to address. 'Indians at Arras' (1917), meanwhile, forms the starting point for a lesson exploring the contribution of Empire troops as well the different attitudes of H.H. Asquith's Liberal government and radical Indian Nationalists to Indian involvement in the war.
'Spirit of Empire' (1927) is also used in History as a starter activity to emphasise the national pride in Britain's status as a world power and 'Motherland' in the 1920s.
In RE, ''Fundamentalism' v 'Evolution'' (1925) provides a novel way of exploring the tensions between scientific and religious explanations for the existence of man. Made around the time of the 'Scopes Monkey Trial' - a landmark legal case that tested the law forbidding the teaching of evolution Tennessee schools - the film represents the differences of opinion as a high-speed train crash!
In Geography, various Topical Budget items on flooding in Ohio, Windsor and Mississippi, filmed between 1913 and 1927, are used to explore the causes and effects of flooding, past and present.
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