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| George Albert Smith |
Today
marks the 150th anniversary of the birth at Cripplegate in London of
George Albert Smith on 4 January 1864.
His name is often mentioned in connection with the development of film
language as a member of the “Brighton School,” film pioneers living on the
south coast who flourished at the turn of the twentieth century, and also as the
inventor of Kinemacolor, the first commercially successful film ‘natural’
(though it wasn’t quite) colour system. The
producer Sir Michael Balcon called him “the father of the British film industry.” That may seem hyperbolic, however, Smith clearly
had a profound influence on the formulation of film language as it developed
from its single-shot origins. Even so, this
recognition, while merited, fails to acknowledge the breadth of his
achievements, and it is that breadth that I think makes him such an absorbing figure.
As
well as on film, Smith’s impact was also felt in psychical research, where he
participated in telepathy experiments with the Society for Psychical Research
(SPR) in its very early days, beginning while he was still a teenager. These experiments contributed to the
foundations of the Society’s theoretical edifice. In addition, he investigated paranormal
phenomena for the SPR (including spending thirteen months living in a haunted
house with his wife Laura Bayley), and performed significant secretarial duties
for one of its key figures, Edmund Gurney.
Trevor H. Hall, whose books were marked by hostility to the early
figures in the SPR, and who span a yarn which involved Smith triggering events
that led Gurney to commit suicide, called Smith “one of the most interesting
and bizarre characters in the history of psychical research.” “Interesting” is certainly accurate. In addition for a period Smith ran a pleasure
garden, St Ann’s Well, at Hove with great energy, and was a lantern-slide
lecturer. What tied all these seemingly disparate activities
together was a vigorous entrepreneurialism.
He ended by investing in property and enjoying a long retirement until
his death at the age of 95 in 1959.
Unfortunately
the heterogeneous nature of his accomplishments has meant that he has remained an
elusive figure, with the exception of his filmmaking years at St Ann’s Well. Worse, the fact that he is better known in
some areas than others has led to distortions in past discussions of his career, as specialists focus on those aspects of direct relevance to their own work and rely on a narrow range of secondary sources for the parts with which they are
less concerned. As
attention has mostly been directed to Smith’s contribution to film language,
his psychical research efforts have often been presented in a bastardised form,
partly because the minutiae of the theoretical discussions can be difficult to
unravel, and partly because experiments with which he was associated have been dogged by accusations of fraud.
Smith’s
life has long been an interest of mine, to the extent of producing a PhD thesis
on him. I am continuing my study, and
would be pleased to hear from anyone with unpublished material (letters,
documents, photographs etc.) relating to Smith, or information on surviving
relatives. In the meantime, let’s toast
a fascinating man who deserves to be even better known.
