The nitrate newsreel ‘Attack on the Hartlepools’, filmed during World War One, was a chance discovery in a cardboard box full of broken cameras and lenses at Tynemouth Market, purchased by Mark Simmons, Hartlepool Borough Council’s Curator of Museum Development, for his personal art and sculpture projects. A year later, in 2019, the old film reel, wrapped in sheets of old greaseproof paper, was found at the bottom of the box and subsequently donated to North East Film Archive. This rare film,...

The nitrate newsreel ‘Attack on the Hartlepools’, filmed during World War One, was a chance discovery in a cardboard box full of broken cameras and lenses at Tynemouth Market, purchased by Mark Simmons, Hartlepool Borough Council’s Curator of Museum Development, for his personal art and sculpture projects. A year later, in 2019, the old film reel, wrapped in sheets of old greaseproof paper, was found at the bottom of the box and subsequently donated to North East Film Archive. This rare film, of unique historical significance, which also features footage of the aftermath of German bombing of Scarborough and Whitby, was digitised as part of the National Lottery Heritage Funded North East on Film project (2019). During the 40-minute dawn attack on 16 December 1914, the heavy cruisers Blucher, Seyditz and Moltke fired some 1,1000 shells, killing 130 people and injuring hundreds more. 

Simmons had been researching the Hartlepool bombing since 2011 and was aware of existing newsreels of the event preserved at the British Film Institute and Imperial War Museum. “[…] examining the film held at the BFI I noticed that there seemed to be a number of cuts, suggesting that parts of the film had been removed or even censored. This suggestion was supported by mentions of censorship in contemporary newspaper adverts. For example, the advert for the first ever showing of footage of the Bombardment, at the Middlesbrough Hippodrome on 17th December 1914, notes that the picture had “been taken and Censored …” This raised the tantalising possibility that versions containing uncensored and previously unseen footage might just still survive somewhere.”

The following film research is courtesy of Mark Simmons.

Shot by Gaumont, the newsreel contains a number of scenes that do not exist in other surviving versions, namely the crowds of local people on Cleveland Street, Hartlepool, and the damage to houses on Carlton Terrace, Hartlepool, which includes a child displaying a piece of bomb shrapnel to camera.

The footage of the damage at Hartlepool was taken on the afternoon of the 16 December 1914, just a few hours after the attack. We know that Mr Jennings, Gaumont’s Northern Area Manager, sent his camera crews based at Middlesbrough out to both Hartlepool and West Hartlepool immediately on hearing the news of the raid. This footage was processed that same evening and a copy sent to the Military Censor in London by train for official approval. After making some edits to remove militarily sensitive subjects, the film was approved for showing at local theatres.

The first of the screenings were at the Hippodrome in Middlesbrough, and the Empire in Stockton, on the evening of Thursday 17 December, continuing every night throughout the following week. Gaumont’s Hartlepool footage was subsequently shown in Newcastle, South Shields. North Shields, and Aberdeen on the Friday, before touring theatres across the whole of Britain over the weekend. It was marketed under the title “The Bombardment of the East Coast”, and even by the New Year was in still demand by theatres.

Rival filmmakers Pathé seem to have been slower off the mark with their own newsreel, which they promoted with a poster campaign. Unfortunately, no copies of this poster survive. There is evidence of a third different film being circulated in Newcastle and Hull, but nothing is known about its origins or contents.

The first showing of any moving image footage of the bombardment in the Borough of Hartlepool wasn’t until 21 December 1914, when the West Hartlepool Empire showed the Gaumont footage “Bombardment of the East Coast” under their “Empire Cine-Mail” brand. They advertised this in the Northern Daily Mail as the “Empire Cine-Mail including Scenes (passed by the Censor) photographed at Scarborough, Whitby and the Hartlepools”.

The Gaumont and Pathé newsreels were a roaring success across the Hartlepools over the Christmas holidays, with packed houses, especially on Boxing Day.  Interestingly the Royal Electric Theatre on Whitby Street, which stood opposite what is now The Bis, advertised their Boxing Day show with a description very close, and with the towns in the same order, of the recent find: ‘In Addition to our Programme To-Night we are showing Pictures of The Hartlepools, Scarborough and Whitby Before and After Bombardment by the “Assassin Cruisers” ‘.  They ended their advert with ‘Compliments of the Season to Everybody, Except the Kaiser’.

The newsreel features footage of the aftermath of bombing in Scarborough, including the rescue of Mrs Florence Blanch Keble from her house on Belvoir Terrace. Mrs Keble was the 51 year old widow of Canon John Keble of Bishopthorpe, and was very well known in Scarborough society due to her church and charity work. Bedridden from an illness, she was thrown by the blast of the shell which struck the upper floors of her house, from her bedroom through into a back room, and buried her under the rubble. Rescuers heard her screams, broke down a back door of the house, and dug her out. She was taken out on a stretcher and then on to hospital. Despite receiving very serious injuries she recovered, and lived on to 1925. Incidentally, Florence’s eldest daughter Margaret was a military nurse between 1915 and 1917, serving in Salonika, Greece, before marrying the vicar of South Bank, Middlesbrough, in 1918.

In Whitby, the Coastguard Signal Station came under heavy shell-fire from the SMS Von der Tann and the SMS Derflinger during the attack. The damage shown was caused when a shell from their second salvo struck and demolished the rear wall of the signal station, but passed through, before then exploding in the Cottages behind. This is the exact location where Robert Parkinson, coastguard telephonist, was wounded by a shell splinter, Private Favis of the 7th Battalion Devon (Cyclists) Regiment was wounded in the back, and where Boy Scout Roy Miller was so badly wounded in his left leg that it subsequently required amputating. Miller later grew up to be a local Bank Manager. Although it was ruined after Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries between 1536 and 1541, Whitby Abbey was further damaged by the German First High Sea fleet's bombardment.

References: 

A Lost Film, Mark Simmons, Curator of Museum Development, Hartlepool Borough Council (2020)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/northyorkshire/content/articles/2008/10/22/scarborough_bombardment_feature.shtml 

https://www.wartimememoriesproject.com/greatwar/battles/view.php?pid=9