News on Screen

Billie Williams entered the film industry in 1910 as an apprentice to the Precision Film Company in London. He subsequently worked in many different branches of the industry, but in 1919 became a freelance director of photography. Williams worked on a wide range of films, and probably did some newsreel work - ‘Williams’ being credited as cameraman for ‘OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE AT LORDS’ in Pathe Super Sound Gazette No.34/56 of July 1934. This Williams worked regularly for the company in July and August 1934, but was afterwards credited only for major events, such as ‘STOP PRESS! Pathe Gazette has pleasure in presenting first pictures of today’s ROYAL WEDDING,' in Super Sound Gazette No.34/96 of November 1934. He was also in the camera team that covered ‘THE FUNERAL OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V’ in No.36/9 of January 1936. His last known credit as a Pathe cameraman is for ‘DAVIS CUP’ in Super Sound Gazette No.36/60 of July 1936, but he apparently continued working for the company.

In September 1937 it was reported that ‘Major’ Williams had been driving a Pathe sound truck to Brooklands with Jock Gemmell [qv], when it was wrecked in a serious crash near Cobham. Williams and Gemmell are known to have worked together as cameramen on four previous occasions. In this crash the camera gear was unharmed, but Williams and Gemmell were prevented from covering the race. After the outbreak of war in 1939 Billie Williams ‘worked mainly as director of photography on a series of documentaries and training films for the Army and Admiralty,' but in August 1942 a Pathe cameraman credited as ‘Williams’ also filmed ‘WOMEN’S P[HYSICAL] T[RAINING] WELWYN’ for Pathe Pictorial No.333, and this may be the same man. In June 1945 ‘Williams’ was one of the Pathe staff interviewed for ‘ELECTION PRELUDE’ in Pathe Gazette No.45/52 - the card describing it coyly as ‘various people voicing their opinions.' After the end of the war Billie Williams worked with the Colonial Film Unit in Kenya, on ‘a series of educational films connected with colonial developments.' In June 1953 a cameraman credited as ‘Williams’ filmed in Parliament Square for ‘THE CORONATION’ in British Movietone News No.1252A.

Sources

Cine Technician, October-November 1937, p.146, ‘Newsreel’: P. Noble (ed) ‘British Film Yearbook 1949-50’ (London, 1949), pp.317-8: P. Noble (ed) ‘British Film and Television Year Book 1956/57’ (London, 1956), p.710.