News on Screen

Will Barker began work in 1872 ‘at the age of ten and a half, pushing a barrow in the City of London for half a crown a week.' He then worked as errand boy for a photography business in Holborn, before becoming a darkroom assistant and finally a studio photographer. In 1878 he moved into the equipment side of the industry, becoming a commercial traveller for plates, cameras, and photographic equipment, and in 1887 he set up in business for himself, as ‘he had managed to save a hundred pounds, put away in the Post Office twopence or threepence at a time.' In 1896 he became ‘fascinated by the Lumiere camera, bought one for £163;40 and set himself up as a film producer.' At first this was only a sideline, but in 1901 Barker retired from the still photographic business and formed the Autoscope Company, which specialised in newsfilm and film of sporting events. He also branched out into dramas, and in 1904 acquired a studio at Ealing. In January 1906 Barker merged his Autoscope Company with the Warwick Trading Company, of which he became Managing Director. He was now one of the most important figures in newsfilm production, and in July 1906 Barker launched a daily programme of newsfilm called ‘London Day by Day,' which ran first at the Palace Theatre and, from January 1907, at the Empire Theatre in Leicester Square. In the same year Barker helped to create the Kinematograph Manufacturers’ Association, and became its first chairman, but he remained a rather combative character, and ended up in court in May 1907 after punching Charles Urban [qv] over accusations of film piracy.

Barker occasionally acted as a cameraman at Warwick, and in July 1908 it was reported that he had been filming the Royal Tour of Leeds and Bristol, ‘taking pictures of the chief incidents of the occasions.' Barker also patented the Warwick Cinephone sound film process, in conjunction with William Jeapes [qv], who joined Warwick in 1908 when that firm entered into ‘a kind of informal amalgamation’ with Jeapes’s Graphic Cinematograph Company. However, the amalgamation did not work out, and in August 1909 Barker left Warwick to form Barker Motion Photography Limited. In July 1911 Barker himself filmed the Investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarvon. As chairman of the Kinematograph manufacturers’ Association he was also instrumental in the formation of the British Board of Film Censors in 1912, and in the recruitment of its first President. Barker Motion Photography produced increasingly long and spectacular fiction films, such as ‘Sixty Years a Queen’ (1913) - with Oscar Bovill [qv] as cameraman - and ‘Jane Shore’ (1915) - with Bovill, Leslie Eveleigh, and Stanley Mumford [qv] as cameramen.

Most of the top cameramen in the country worked for Barker at some time, and in 1914 he claimed that ‘seven out of every ten men who handled a camera in London, and four out of ten dark-room men, had started with him.' However, this was partly because Barker was notorious for paying low wages, which ensured a very high turnover of staff. The problem was so serious that in 1918 the Kine Cameramen’s Society was reportedly founded because Barker was ‘using women to operate cameras and paying them 30/- a week.' In December 1918 Barker announced his retirement from film production, although Barker Motion Photography continued to produce films. In 1920, however, Barker was persuaded by William Jeapes [qv], now at the Topical Film Company, to be cameraman on the Prince of Wales’ Empire tour. Barker’s work was first released between April and October 1920 as individual news items in the Topical Budget (issues 453-1 to 477-1) and subsequently as the feature-length ‘50,000 Miles with the Prince of Wales’ (1920). Soon afterwards Barker seems to have begun work for William Jeapes’ Film Laboratories Limited, and he later appears to have become involved with the Roll Film Company in Hendon. He eventually founded his own photographic company in Wimbledon, developing amateur snapshots, and in 1951 he died ‘in the offices of his developing and printing works.'

Sources

Bioscope, 26/8/1909, p.5; 14/10/1909, p.21; 13/6/1912, p.803, ‘Jeapes v. Warwick Trading Company, Limited’; 12/12/1918, p.15, ‘Film Trade Loses a Pioneer’: Kinematograph Weekly, 12/12/1918, p.56, ‘Will Barker Retires’; 8/11/1951, p.10, ‘Bill Barker’s Death’: L. Wood ‘The Romance of the Movies’ (1937), p.102: R. Low and R. Manvell ‘History of the British Film 1896-1906’ (1948), p.15: Cine Technician, July-August 1949, p.110; September-October 1941, p.117: Daily Mail, 7/11/1951: B. Honri ‘Will G. Barker: His Studios and Techniques’ Parts 1 & 2, British Journal of Photography, 16 and 23/2/1973: B. Honri ‘Newsreel Nostalgia,' British Journal of Photography, 1/7/1977, p.549: NFTVA, Luke McKernan’s biographical index of Topical Budget staff: N. Hiley ‘British Newsreel Staff 1910-1920,' in J. Ballantyne (ed) ‘Researcher’s Guide to British Newsreels: Vol.II’ (1988), pp.28-31.