News on Screen

William Jeapes trained as an electrical engineer, entering the film industry in 1897 when he bought a projector from Robert Paul and began showing films in London music halls. Jeapes may then have worked for the British Mutoscope and Biograph Syndicate, for he later claimed to have been the first person to show film of the Grand National in London on the day of the race, a feat which the Syndicate achieved at the Palace Theatre in 1899. Jeapes was also said to have been associated with McDowell [qv], another electrical engineer who acted as the Syndicate’s projectionist at the Palace Theatre in 1900. However, in 1902 William Jeapes formed his own Graphic Cinematograph Company, and began to produce his own regular programme of newsfilm known as Jeapes’ Animated Graphic, which he later claimed was exhibited ‘at most of the music halls in town.'

His brother Harold Jeapes [qv] acted as cameraman for Jeapes’ Animated Graphic, whilst Arthur Melbourne-Cooper seems also to have been associated with the venture. By 1905 the Graphic Cinematograph Company was also producing fiction films, many of them directed by Harold Jeapes. Jeapes’ Animated Graphic was still being distributed in June 1908, when William Jeapes got exclusive access to film the suffragette rally in Hyde Park. He was said to enjoy ‘a friendly rivalry with Bill Barker [qv],' the managing director of the Warwick Trading Company, but later in 1908 they agreed to ‘a kind of informal amalgamation’ of the Graphic Cinematograph Company with the Warwick Trading Company. Jeapes joined Warwick on a three-year contract, but there seems to have been a clash of personalities, and after only a few months he agreed to leave the joint company, returning only in August 1909, when Barker himself left to establish Barker Motion Photography.

Jeapes now became head of Warwick’s news department, and in July 1910 he launched a newsreel called the Warwick Bioscope Chronicle as a successor to Jeapes’s Animated Graphic, using his brother Harold as one of the cameramen. However, in June 1911 William Jeapes finally abandoned Warwick, following an argument with the managing director, and in August 1911 he founded the Topical Film Company with Wrench [qv]. In September 1911 Jeapes launched a newsreel called the Topical Budget, recruiting his brother Harold as chief cameraman and himself acting as cameraman on a number of the early stories, such as ‘Hendon Air Races’ in March 1913 for Topical Budget No.83-1. On the outbreak of war in August 1914 the Topical Film Company launched a new series of war newsfilms, but the Topical Budget, like the other newsreels, was badly hit by wartime restrictions on filming. In May 1916 Jeapes was exempted from war service, and he remained in charge of the Topical Film Company until April 1917, when the War Office Cinematograph Committee (WOCC) decided to make him an honorary lieutenant and send him to GHQ as technical adviser on newsfilm. This plan was later dropped, but in order to guarantee the future of the ailing Topical Budget Jeapes offered the WOCC ‘complete use and control of his business premises, rent free, on the basis of continuity of operations.' The newsreel was to be renamed the War Office Official Topical Budget, and all profits were to go to war charities.

The new arrangement began in May 1917, but the WOCC found it unsatisfactory and in November 1917 it bought Jeapes and Wrench’s majority shareholding. Jeapes was put in charge of technical operations at the War Office Official Topical Budget, but when the WOCC sold the Topical Film Company to Edward Hulton in February 1919, Jeapes returned to his former position as managing director. However, in May 1925 Jeapes finally decided to leave the Topical Film Company, taking six months salary. In March 1926 he launched a new newsreel, the Empire News Bulletin, employing his brother Harold as chief cameraman, and appointing Cecil Snape [qv] as editor. Early press reports suggested that this newsreel would contain ‘examples...of a new process of stereoscopic cinematography invented by Mr. Jeapes,' but these ‘Stereo Scenes’ seem to have been confined to the Sample Bulletins. In July 1930 the Empire News Bulletin newsreel was developed into a new sound newsreel, the Universal Talking News, also edited by Snape. However, in July 1937 Snape left to become editor of the short-lived National News, and Jeapes’ son Clifford Jeapes [qv] stepped in as editor with Brian Saveall [qv] as ‘joint editor.' Jeapes eventually sold out to Rank in 1943 and retired.

Sources

Kinematograph Weekly, 25/6/1908, p.127, ‘Graphic Co.s Suffragette Film’: Bioscope, 13/6/1912, p.803, ‘Jeapes v. Warwick Trading Company, Limited’; 20/5/1926, p.43, ‘Empire News Bulletin’: House of Lords Record Office, Beaverbrook Papers, BBK/E/2/4, E/2/5, and E/2/8: Kine Year Book 1921, p.542, ‘William Cecil Jeapes’: Cine Technician, August-October 1936, p.58; 27/9/1956, p.7: World Film News, October 1937, p.35, ‘Newsreel rushes: newsreel notes by The Commentator’: K. Carroll ‘The Cinematograph in the London Music Hall,' Cinema Studies, June 1964, p.219: NFTVA, Luke McKernan’s biographical index of Topical Budget staff.