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Sex in the Cinema: War, Moral Panic, and the British Film Industry, 1906–19181

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Dean Rapp
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The film era in Britain commenced in early 1896, but its moral impact on viewers was not considered very much during its first decade. This was primarily because film was dispersed in a variety of venues like music halls and fairgrounds where other entertainment was provided, or in unused shops and other premises that were temporarily rented. Film thus had no permanent, separate identity as a leisure activity that took place in one particular type of public space, hence it was difficult for moralists to recognize, much less discern and evaluate its moral influence. Moreover, many of the middle class (from whom most moralists came) dismissed the early film industry as a passing, vulgar fad of the working class that need not be taken seriously.

But moralists did begin to notice the impact of the industry when film acquired a conspicuous new identity of its own in the years after 1906 when thousands of purpose-built cinemas were constructed. The tremendous growth of both the cinemas and their mostly working-class, youthful audiences led some middle-class moralists to focus their attention on film for the first time. They soon concluded that the cinemas undermined the morality of their young audiences and launched a crusade against the film industry. The general outlines of the campaign are well known. Moralists charged that the darkened cinemas provided cover for couples to court and for some men to abuse children. They also asserted that many films were sensational ones about sexual indecency, crime, and violence. Such fare, they contended, encouraged immorality and incited juvenile delinquency among youth who imitated the crimes they saw enacted on screen. The moralists therefore demanded censorship of the films, brighter lighting in the cinemas to discourage sexual misbehavior, and police action against indecency. Moreover, Sabbatarians opposed the opening of the cinemas on Sundays as a further desecration of that holy day of rest.

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Research Article
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Albion , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , Fall 2002 , pp. 422 - 451
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Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 2002

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Footnotes

1

I am grateful to Mark Noll and Randolph Trumbach for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. It was presented at a meeting of the Midwest Conference on British Studies in Chicago in October 1999.

References

2 The lack of a nationwide moral crusade against film between 1897–1906 is evident in the silence about film as morally objectionable among those most likely to have protested—the religious press and London social purity activists. A careful survey of seven religious weeklies for these years has uncovered no editorials, articles, or letters to the editor protesting against morally objectionable films. The seven are: Baptist Times, The Christian (nondenominational evangelical), Church Times (Anglican), The Guardian (Anglican), Methodist Recorder, Methodist Times, and The Record (evangelical Anglican). Nor was such protest found in the Vigilance Record (1898–1908) of the National Vigilance Association, nor in the annual reports (1901–1908) of the London Council for the Promotion of Public Morality. The Salvation Army, which actively participated in the crusade after 1910, made no moral protest against film in the earlier years. See Rapp, Dean, “The British Salvation Army, the Early Film Industry and Urban Working-Class Adolescents, 1897–1918,” Twentieth Century British History 7, 2 (1996): 164–71, 175–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 By 1910, there were approximately 1,600 cinemas in Britain. Further expansion brought them to a total of perhaps 3,500 in 1916. For the growth of the early film industry, see Curran, James and Porter, Vincent, British Cinema History (Totowa, N.J., 1983), p. 27Google Scholar; Low, Rachel and Manvell, Roger, History of the British Film, 1896–1906 (London, 1949), pp. 13–18, 23, 25, 32–33Google Scholar; Robertson, James R., British Board of Film Censors: Film Censorship in Britain, 1896–1950 (London, 1985), pp. 1, 3Google Scholar.

4 The best overview of the moralists' attack on film for the 1910–1918 period is Field, Audrey, Picture Palace: A Social History of the Cinema (London, 1974), pp. 25–29, 37–40, 52Google Scholar. Other bits and pieces of the moral crusade are in scattered sources, the most important of which are: Hunnings, Neville March, Film Censors and the Law (London, 1967), pp. 39–70Google Scholar; Kuhn, Annette, Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality, 1909–1925 (London, 1988), pp. 120–22Google Scholar; Low, Rachael, History of the British Film, 1906–1914 (London, 1949), pp. 15, 21, 33–35, 85–86Google Scholar; idem, History of the British Film, 1914–1918 (London, 1950), pp. 33–34, 126–41; Manvall, David, “Palaces for Entertainment and Instruction: A Study of the Early Cinema in Birmingham, 1908–1918,” Midland History 10 (1985), pp. 101–02Google Scholar; Robertson, , British Board of Film Censors, pp. 15–16Google Scholar.

5 Three sexually suggestive films have previously been cited for the 1910–1918 time period: Sapho (1913), Five Nights (1915) and another version of Sappho (1918). However, the specific contents that the crusaders deemed to be indecent have not been revealed, save for vague references to lovemaking. For the three films, see Hunnings, Film Censors, pp. 57–58, 60, 63, 86–87; Low, , British Film, 1914–1918, pp. 128–29, 138Google Scholar. For more general references to sexually suggestive films in the 1910–1918 era, see Field, , Picture Palace, pp. 58–59, 62Google Scholar; Hunnings, , Film Censors, pp. 51, 61Google Scholar; Low, , British Film, 1906–1914, p. 86Google Scholar. For courting couples (with no particulars provided), see, Ferris, Paul, Sex and the British: A Twentieth Century History (London, 1993), p. 61Google Scholar; Field, , Picture Palace, pp. 25, 55–56, 63Google Scholar; Haste, Cate, Rules of Desire–Sex in Britain: World War I to the Present (London, 1992), pp. 52–53Google Scholar; Hunnings, , Film Censors, p. 64Google Scholar; Manvall, , “Palaces for Entertainment,” p. 101Google Scholar. For brief, vague comments on child molestation, see Field, , Picture Palace, p. 60Google Scholar; Kuhn, , Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality, pp. 120–21Google Scholar. Although film historians have neglected to link purity activists to the crusade against film, there are two such brief references in Ferris, , Sex and the British, p. 61Google Scholar and Haste, , Rules of Desire, pp. 52–53Google Scholar.

6 This overview of the social purity movement is based primarily on Bartley, Paula, Prostitution: Prevention and Reform in England, 1860–1914 (London, 2000), pp. 15–18, 30, 77, 83–85, 97, 126–27, 149, 155–57, 161–62, 178–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also: Bristow, Edward J., Vice and Vigilance: Purity Movements in Britain since 1700 (Totowa, N.J., 1977), pp. 200–22Google Scholar; Hunt, Alan, “The Great Masturbation Panic and the Discourses of Moral Regulation in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Britain,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 8, 4 (1998): 579, 581–82, 589, 592, 609–11Google Scholar; Hynes, Samuel, Edwardian Turn of Mind (Princeton, 1968), pp. 254–306Google Scholar; Jackson, Louise A., Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England (London, 2000), pp. 1, 6, 86, 106Google Scholar; Jeffreys, Sheila, The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality, 1880–1930 (London, 1985) pp. 6–26Google Scholar. For the “youth problem” at the rum of the century, see Childs, Michael J., Labour's Apprentices: Working-Class Lads in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (Montreal, 1992), pp. 95–139Google Scholar; Davis, John, Youth and the Condition of Britain: Images of Adolescent Conflict (London, 1990), pp. 42–19Google Scholar; Springhall, John, Coming of Age: Adolescence in Britain, 1860–1960 (London, 1986), pp. 113, 120–47, 153–56Google Scholar; Jones, Gareth Stedman, “Working-Class Culture and Working-Class Politics in London, 1870–1900,” Journal of Social History 7 (Summer 1974): 476–79, 490–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Goode, Erich and Ben-Yehuda, Nachman, Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance (Oxford, 1994), pp. 19–20, 30–36, 52Google Scholar.

8 Springhall, John, Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics: Penny Gaffs to Gangsta-Rap, 1830–1996 (New York, 1998), pp. 2, 3, 7, 9, 156, 160–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The only aspect of film he examines is the moral panic about gangster films of the 1930s.

9 Tablet, 14 September 1912, p. 412; Sunday School Chronicle quoted in Kinematograph Weekly, 30 03 1911, p. 17Google Scholar; Church Times, 6 05 1910, p. 619Google Scholar; Quiver, 03 1912, p. 460Google Scholar; quoting an Anglican clergyman in Cinema, 9 07 1914, p. 25Google Scholar.

10 London Metropolitan Archive (hereafter cited as LMA), formerly the Greater London Record Office, London County Council, Minutes and Papers of the Theatres and Music Halls Committee (hereafter cited as LCC/MIN) 10, 961, Saved by Fire (1912), pp. 1–4Google Scholar.

11 LMA, LCC/MIN/10,938, R. Adkins to R. McKenna, 16 July 1912, letter from R. Adkins, 17 July 1912; LCC/MIN/10,961, letter from Rev. A. Cunningham-Burley, 23 July 1912.

12 See The Cinema: Its Present Position and Future Possibilities (London, 1917), p. lxiGoogle Scholar.

13 See in Cinema: Its Present Position, p. 205.

l4 Bartley, , Prostitution, pp. 189–90Google Scholar.

15 Mrs. Booth, the wife of General Bramwell Booth, made these comments as part of a deputation about the cinemas to the Home Office. It was organized by the social purity group the National Union of Women Workers. The War Cry drove home Booth's point by arguing that the “evil influence which bad stories exert when heard or read is increased manifold” when “presented in living realistic form to the sight” (3 June 1916, pp. 6, 8).

16 For the use in the early 1890s of inspectors for music halls by the Theatres and Music Halls Committee, see Pennybacker, Susan, “‘It was not what she said but the way in which she said it’: The London County Council and the Music Halls,” in Bailey, Peter, ed., Music Hall: the business of pleasure (Milton Keynes, 1986), pp. 126–27, 130Google Scholar.

17 LMA, LCC/MIN/10,938, Report of Inspector George Martin, 20 July 1912.

18 Pennybacker, , “‘It was not what she said,’” p. 130Google Scholar.

19 Bartley, , Prostitution, pp. 190–191Google Scholar.

20 This was likewise true of the other purity campaigns. See ibid., pp. 83, 194.

21 For a brief account of the French market in visual eroticism, see Christie, Ian, The Last Machine: Early Cinema and the Birth of the Modern World (London, 1994) pp. 75, 76Google Scholar

22 For the statistics of American films exhibited in Britain, see Robertson, , British Board of Film Censors, p. 2Google Scholar

23 The World's Greatest Love Story Filmed,” Review of Sapho in Cinema, 11 12 1913, p. 60Google Scholar. Both France and the United States produced Sapho films in 1913, but the one critiqued by the purists and reviewed in Cinema was made in America by the Majestic Motion Picture Company. For its plot, see American Film Institute Catalog: Feature Films, 1911–1920 (1988), p. 802Google Scholar.

24 Bioscope, 14 07 1913, pp. 231, 241Google Scholar; Cinema, 2 07 1913, p. 13, 23 July 1913, p. 45, 4 December 1913, p. 37Google Scholar; Darlington and Stockton Times, 26 07 1913, p. 3Google Scholar; Vigilance Record, 09 1913, pp. 73–74Google Scholar. The film was first shown prior to the setting up of the Board of Censors, so it had not received its approval.

25 Coote, William Alexander, “Law and Morality,” in Public Morals (London, 1902), pp. 63–67Google Scholar. Coote dealt with indecent books and pictures, but made no mention of film, another indication of the lack of interest in it at this time. He was secretary of the National Vigilance Association and the book was published for the National Social Purity Crusade. See also Bartley, , Prostitution, p. 193Google Scholar.

26 Kuhn, , Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality, p. 138Google Scholar. Kuhn's section on 1909–1918 analyzes the British response to propaganda films for birth control and against abortion and venereal disease. Such films were not protested against by the anti-film crusaders dealt with in this paper; indeed some of them were approved of by such purity activists as the National Council of Public Morals (see ibid., pp. 29–74).

27 Vigilance Record, 02 1912, p. 15Google Scholar.

28 Bioscope, 7 05 1914, p. 581Google Scholar.

29 Christian, 2 05 1912, p. 9Google Scholar.

30 For the early years of the Board, see Hunnings, , Film Censors and the Law, pp. 48–68Google Scholar; Robertson, , British Board of Film Censors, pp. 4–18Google Scholar.

31 Tablet, 8 03 1913, p. 359Google Scholar.

32 Month, 07 1913, pp. 37, 40–42Google Scholar.

33 Rev.Waldron, A.J., quoted in Kinematograph Weekly, 29 08 1912, p. 1236Google Scholar.

34 Quiver, 03 1912, p. 454Google Scholar; Bioscope, 26 01 1911, p. 5Google Scholar; Cinema, 9 07 1914, p. 25Google Scholar; Kinematograph Weekly, 29 08 1912, p. 1236Google Scholar.

35 Rev.Fairfax, Frank, “The People's Amusements,” reprinted from the United Methodist in Bioscope, 31 08 1911, p. 427Google Scholar.

36 For examples, see ibid., and, “The Church and the Picture Theatre: A chat with Rev. A. Tildsley,” Kinematograph Weekly, 29 July 1915, p. 50.; Rev.Waldron, A.J., “The Cinematograph: Its Educational and Beneficial Influence,” Bioscope, 25 12 1913, pp. 1297, 1299Google Scholar

37 Kift, Dagmar, Victorian music hall: Culture, class and conflict, trans, by Kift, Roy (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 182–83Google Scholar.

38 Kinematograph Weekly, 13 10 1910, p. 1489Google Scholar; Bioscope, 7 08 1913, p. 391Google Scholar, 10 July 1913, p. 84; Cinema, 12 03 1913, p. 31Google Scholar, 22 October 1913, p. 3; Kinematograph Weekly, 19 05 1910, p. 67Google Scholar. For the article comparing the cinemas to indecent postcards, see Church Times, 6 05 1910, p. 619Google Scholar.

39 Kinematograph Weekly, 19 05 1910, p. 67, 13 October 1910, p. 1489Google Scholar. The Baptist was Rev. F. B. Meyer.

40 Cinema: Its Present Position, pp. 23–24.

41 Ibid, 13 November 1913, p. 75.

42 Cinema, 22 10 1913, p. 3Google Scholar.

43 For these statistics, see Bottomore, Stephen, “The Coming of the Cinema,” History Today 46, 3 (03 1996): 17Google Scholar; Hiley, Nicholas, “The British Cinema Auditorium,” in Dibbets, Karel and Hogenkamp, Bert, eds., Film and the First World War (Amsterdam, 1995), p. 162Google Scholar.

44 Guardian, 9 November 1916, p. 960, 30 December 1915, p. 1172. The comment about adherents was based on an estimate of six to eight million weekly attendance at the cinemas.

45 For perceptions of the religious crisis, see McLeod, Hugh, Religion and Society in England, 1850–1914 (New York, 1996), pp. 169–220CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Guardian, 9 11 1916, p. 960Google Scholar; Church Times, 25 08 1916, p. 153Google Scholar.

47 Higonnet, Margaret Randolph, Jenson, Jane, Michel, Sonya, Weitz, Margaret Collins, eds., Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars (New Haven, 1987), pp. 5–6, 9, 12Google Scholar.

48 See, for example, the comments relating this point to the cinemas in Cinema: Its Present Position, pp. 97, 344.

49 Bland, Lucy, “In the name of protection: the policing of women in the First World War,” in Brophy, Julia and Smart, Carol, eds., Women-in-Law: Explorations in law, family and sexuality (London, 1985), pp. 23–49Google Scholar; Dreher, Nan H., “The Virtuous and the Verminous: Turn-of-the-Century Moral Panics in London's Public Parks,” Albion 29, 2 (Summer 1997): 246–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ferris, , Sex and the British, pp. 54–75Google Scholar; Grayzel, Susan R., “‘Mothers of Our Soldiers' Children’: Motherhood, Immorality, and the War Baby Scandal, 1914–18,” in Nelson, Claudia and Holmes, Ann Sumner, eds., Maternal Instincts: Visions of Motherhood and Sexuality in Britain, 1875–1925 (New York, 1997), pp. 122–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haste, , Rules of Desire, pp. 32–57Google Scholar; Levine, Philippa, “‘Walking the Streets in a Way No Decent Woman Should’: Women Police in World War I,” Journal of Modern History 66 (03 1994): 34–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Woollacott, Angela, “‘Khaki Fever’ and its Control: Gender, Class, Age and Sexual Morality on the British Homefront in the First World War,” Journal of Contemporary History 29 (1994): 325–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Cinema, 3 12 1914, p. 33Google Scholar. For a prewar report in a film journal about sexual abuse, see Kinematograph Weekly, 6 05 1909, p. 1539Google Scholar. The Theatres and Music Halls Committee sent an inspector to search for indecent conduct in some East End cinemas in the summer of 1910; he found nothing. See LMA, LCC/MIN/10,938, reports (4 of them) of H. Martin, Inspector.

51 Dreher, , “Virtuous and Verminous,” p. 255Google Scholar.

52 Jackson, , Child Sexual Abuse, pp. 4, 13–14, 17, 52Google Scholar.

53 In April 1914, the Bishop of London, Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, introduced a bill (later withdrawn) in the House of Lords for the London Council for the Promotion of Public Morality, which asked for a raise in the age of consent to 18 and in cases of indecent assault to 16. During his speech, he referred to 400 cases of child abuse in the previous six years that had been documented by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. For the debates on the bill, see Parliamentary Debates, Fifth Series, House of Lords, XV, 29 04 1914, pp. 1111–1135Google Scholar; XVII, 20 July 1914, pp. 25–53, 27 July 1914, pp. 182–85. In conjunction with the campaign to change the laws, there was also a Conference on Criminal Assaults on Children. See Jeffreys, , Spinster and Her Enemies, pp. 55, 57, 60, 64–65Google Scholar.

54 For a report early in the war of child abuse in the cinemas, see Cinema, 3 12 1914, p. 33Google Scholar.

55 LMA, LCC/MIN/10,763, letter from Lady St. Helier, 4 November 1915. Lady Mary St. Hellier attended the meeting of the Theatres and Music Halls Committee (17 November 1915), which considered her letter and formed a special subcommittee to consider abuses at two cinemas.

56 Public Record Office (hereafter cited as PRO), Metropolitan Police Records of police work and investigations (hereafter cited as MEPO), 2/1691 (“Indecency in Cinemas, 1915–1917”), James Bird, Clerk of the Council [London County Council] to Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, 19 November 1915; letter to James Bird from Metropolitan Police, 23 November 1915; Memo, “Particulars of cases in which children have been assaulted or molested at Cinematograph Halls during the present year,” 23 November 1915.

57 Jackson, , Child Sexual Abuse, pp. 8, 91, 116, 125–26Google Scholar.

58 LMA, LCC/MIN/10,763, Report of subcommittee on children at cinematograph halls, 24 November 1915; LCC/MIN/10,737, Minutes of 19 January 1916 meeting, Resolution of the London County Council, 21 December 1915.

59 PRO, Home Office Papers (hereafter cited as HO), 45/24570, letter from Col. J. Unsworth, Salvation Army, International Headquarters, the Parliamentary Secretary's Office, 15 April 1916; minutes of interview with Colonel Unsworth, 20 April 1916.

60 For Charrington, see Thorne, Guy, The Great Acceptance: The Life Story of F.N. Charrington (London, 1913), pp. 104–52Google Scholar. See also, Davis, , “Indecency and Vigilance,” pp. 113–15Google Scholar; Kift, , Victorian Music Hall, pp. 155–57, 167–68Google Scholar.

61 Jackson, , Child Sexual Abuse, p. 111Google Scholar.

62 PRO, HO 45/24570, “Tour of Inspection of Cinemas, From 2 April to present date,” 10 May 1916; Minutes, 24 April 1916; Minutes, interview with Mr. Charrington, 16 May 1916.

63 For bourgeois disgust and desire, as well as the voyeurism of some middle-class moral observers, see Gurney, Peter, “‘Intersex,’ and ‘Dirty Girls’: Mass Observation and Working-Class Sexuality in England in the 1930s,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 8, 2 (1997): 260, 262, 268, 274–75Google Scholar.

64 The three periodicals that published Charrington's findings were the English Churchman, Sunday School Chronicle, and One for All, a Quaker journal. Charrington contacted the Home Office again in September and October with follow up reports, including one that charged that a certain cinema was still “the resort of sodomites.' See PRO, HO 45/24570, memorandum, 6 September 1916; letter to Mr. Aitken, 3 October 1916.

65 Jackson, , Child Sexual Abuse, pp. 5, 102–05Google Scholar.

66 Charrington's Illustrated Record as quoted in Cinema, 29 06 1916, p. 43Google Scholar. See also the report of Charrington's, “Cinema Crusade” in Vigilance Record, 12 1916, pp. 93–94Google Scholar.

67 For this point about social purity reports, see Jackson, , Child Sexual Abuse, pp. 55–56Google Scholar.

68 Cinema, 4 05 1916, p. 33, 29 June 1916, p. 43Google Scholar.

69 PRO, HO 45/24570, Memorandum, 26 April, 1916.

70 Petrow, Stefan, Policing Morals: The Metropolitan Police and the Home Office, 1870–1914 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 4–5, 42, 45, 295CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 PRO, MEPO 2/1691, memo of 18 May 1916.

72 The National Union of Women Workers was formed in 1888 by various philanthropic, religious and temperance societies. See Hollis, Patricia, Ladies Elect: Women in English Local Government, 1865–1914 (Oxford, 1987), pp. 25–26, 236–39Google Scholar.

73 Bland, , “In the name of protection,” pp. 26–27Google Scholar; Dreher, , “Virtuous and the Verminous,” p. 259Google Scholar; Grayzel, , “‘Mothers of Our Soldiers' Children,’” pp. 131–34Google Scholar; Levine, , “‘Walking the Streets,’” pp. 42, 44–45, 66Google Scholar; Woollacott, , “‘Khaki Fever,’” pp. 327, 334–36Google Scholar.

74 PRO, MEPO 2/1691, letter from Mrs. Carden, Hon Sec. of NUWW, 30 May 1916; letter from Mrs. Carden, 1 June 1916; memo of Sir Edward Henry, 6 June 1916; letter from A. Hartwell, London Women Patrols Committee, 14 June 1916. The women were paid 6s. per eight-hour day plus expenses.

75 PRO, MEPO, 2/1691, typed report of the questions, n.d.

76 PRO, MEPO 2/1691, letter of Police Commissioner Henry 28 July 1916; Memo from Superintendent West, 25 May 1916. The Women Patrols also reported that in 66 of the cinemas there was a special children's attendant and in 83 others children unaccompanied by adults were seated separately from the rest of the audience.

77 LMA, LCC/M1N/10,994, report from Chief Officer, London Fire Brigade, 10 November 1916. He reported that 230 London cinemas now had satisfactory lighting, 25 were in the process of improving it, and in 36 it was still insufficient. See also, PRO, HO 45/24570, James Bird to Home Office, 6 December 1916.

78 PRO, MEPO 2/1691, Memo from Superintendent West, 25 May 1916.

79 LMA. LCC/MIN, 10,992, letters of Howard Tyrer, secretary, London Council for the Promotion of Public Morality, 29 July 1916, 10 August 1916, 3 November 1916.

80 Vigilance Record, 08 1918, pp. 31, 64Google Scholar; Bioscope, 25 07 1918, p. 4Google Scholar.

81 LMA, LCC/MIN/ 10, 999, Report by the Clerk of the Council, James Bird, presented to the meeting of 6 March 1918.

82 LMA, LCC/MIN/ 10, 739, minutes of meetings of 3 July 1918, 16 October 1918, 6 November 1918, 20 November 1918, 4 December 1918.

83 Dreher, , “Virtuous and the Verminous,” p. 259Google Scholar; Davis, , “Indecency and Vigilance,” p. 124Google Scholar.

84 See the comments on this in Bartley, , Prostitution, pp. 120–21Google Scholar. Her remarks are based on Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish (London, 1975)Google Scholar.

85 Church Times, 9 03 1917, p. 212Google Scholar. She was a member of the National Union of Women Workers.

86 Cinema, 1 04 1915, p. 31, 11 November 1915, p. 8, 18 November 1915, p. 2, 7 September 1916, p. 27Google Scholar.

87 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 16 03 1915, p. 8, 17Google Scholar March 1915, p. 8, 18 March 1915, p. 8, 19 March 1915, p. 5, 22 March 1915, p. 8, 26 March 1915, p. 8.

88 Bland, , “In the Name of Protection,” pp. 27–28Google Scholar; Dreher, , “Virtuous and the Verminous,” p. 256Google Scholar; Grayzel, , “‘Mothers of our Soldiers' Children,’” p. 123Google Scholar; Levine, , “‘Walking the Streets,’” p. 43Google Scholar; Woollacott, , “‘Khaki Fever,’” pp. 325–26Google Scholar.

89 Five Nights is mentioned in Hunnings, , Film Censors, pp. 57–58, 60, 63, 86–87Google Scholar; Low, , British Film, 1914–1918, pp. 128–29Google Scholar.

90 Five Nights (1908) was written by Victoria Cross (pseudonym for Vivian Cory).

91 Bioscope, 9 09 1915, p. 1135Google Scholar.

92 Accrington Observer and Times, 19 10 1915, pp. 2, 5, 23Google Scholar October 1915. The White Cross League held its campaign in conjunction with the Accrington and District Church of England Men's Society, another social purity group.

93 Birmingham Gazette, 20 09 1915, p. 8Google Scholar; (Hull) Daily News, 30 11 1915, p. 6, 3 December 1915, p. 5Google Scholar.

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95 Leicester Daily Mercury, 12 11 1915, p. 6Google Scholar; Leicester Mail, 12 10 1915, pp. 3, 4, 16 October 1915, p. 3Google Scholar

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97 Guardian, 9 11 1916, p. 960Google Scholar.

98 Rev.Pomeroy, Vivian T., a Congregationalist pastor quoted in Cinema, 20 01 1916, p. 7Google Scholar.

99 Christian, 10 02 1916, p. 9Google Scholar; Challenge, 19 05 1916, p. 41Google Scholar; Methodist Times, 31 08 1916, p. 8Google Scholar; Sunday School Chronicle, 4 05 1916, p. 274Google Scholar. For the Salvation Army's support of censorship, see Rapp, , “British Salvation Army,” pp. 180–81Google Scholar.

100 Robertson, , Board of Film Censors, pp. 12–16Google Scholar. The new Secretary was Sir George Cave.

101 Sunday School Chronicle, 1 02 1917, p 50Google Scholar.

102 Goode, and Ben-Yehuda, , Moral Panics, pp. 38–39Google Scholar.

103 Dreher, , “Virtuous and Verminous,” p. 259Google Scholar; Grayzel, , “‘Mothers of Our Soldiers' Children,’” p. 123Google Scholar; Woollacott, , “‘Khaki Fever,’” p. 331Google Scholar.

104 This observation is based on the survey of seven religious weeklies cited in footnote 2.

105 Cinema: Its Present Position, pp. viii–ix. There were three Baptists, and one each who were Anglican, Catholic, Congregationalist, Jewish, Methodist, and Salvation Army. One had been associated with several Free Church denominations.

106 This was Henry Russell Wakefield. He had previously commented favorably on the cinema. See, for example, Kinematograph Weekly 17 04 1913, p. 2473Google Scholar. He was President of the National Council of Public Morals. Four of the other clergy on the Commission were also on the Council as Vice Chairman, Honorary Treasurers, and Secretary. For the founding of the Council (originally called the National Social Purity Crusade) see Hynes, , Edwardian Turn of Mind, pp. 281–85Google Scholar.

107 The book was Cinema: Its Present Position. For other accounts of the Cinema Commission, see Field, , Picture Palace, pp. 52–66Google Scholar; Low, , British Film, 1914–1918, pp. 134–36Google Scholar.

108 Cinema: Its Present Position, pp. xxv, xxvii, xxx, xlvi, 8–12, 14, 19, 40, 83, 86, 178, 181, 207–09, 220, 240–41, 352, 358, 360, 368. Charrington is not mentioned by name in the report but the information is unmistakably about him.

109 Ibid., pp. xxviii, xxx, xlvi.

110 Bioscope, 11 10 1911, p. 4Google Scholar. See also Kinematograph Weekly, 11 10 1917, p. 93Google Scholar.

111 Cinema, 17 January 1918, pp. 5-6.

112 For the failure of their other campaigns and the authorities' reluctance to impose all the moral regulations demanded by the purists, see Bartley, , Prostitution, pp. 17, 83, 85, 161, 165, 193–94Google Scholar; Dreher, , “Virtuous and Verminous,” pp. 246, 252, 255–56, 259Google Scholar; Pennybacker, , “‘It was not what she said,246” pp. 136–37Google Scholar; Davis, , “Indecency and Vigilance,” pp. 115, 120, 124, 129Google Scholar.

113 The Devil's Camera (1932) was written by Burnett, R. G. and Martell, E. D.Google Scholar. For hostility to film in the 1930s, see Richards, Jeffrey, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1930–1939 (London, 1984), pp. 46–66Google Scholar. For the moral panic against gangster films of the 1930s, see Springhall, , Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics, pp. 114–19Google Scholar. For the anti-film activities in the 1930s of the churches and the London Council for the Promotion of Public Morality, see Machin, G. I .T., “British Churches and the Cinema in the 1930s,” in Wood, Diana, ed., Studies in Church History: The Church and the Arts (Oxford, 1992), pp. 484–85, 487Google Scholar.