News on Screen

John Stewart entered the film industry in 1936, working in Liverpool and making a medical series on anaesthetics. He also ran ‘The Tatler News Reel,' a local sound newsreel produced for the Tatler News Theatre in Liverpool, which was launched in 1936 by Capital & Provincial News Theatres. Stewart also worked as a freelance cameraman, later claiming to have done ‘newsreel work’ for Pathe in the pre-war period, and to have ‘filmed Blackpool Illuminations in colour for the first time.' However, there is only one credit likely to have been his, ‘MERSEY FERRY BOATS’ in New Series Pictorial No.192 of December 1939. Stewart also worked on a number of pre-war publicity films for Littlewoods and the British Red Cross Society, and for the seaside resort of Rhyl.

In 1939 Stewart joined the RAF and worked on technical cinematography. In 1943 he joined the Technical Research Establishment at Malvern, where he photographed and directed ‘numerous training films’ for the RAF - presumably on radar operation. Stewart left the TRE in 1948, and in 1949 began producing documentaries for the DATA Film Unit, Realist Film Unit, and BBC Television. It is likely that his work for Data included camera work on ‘A PIT IS REBORN 5. GEDLING’ in Mining Review 2nd Year No.5 of January 1949 and ‘TRAWLER’ in 3rd Year No.7 of March 1950. In 1950 he founded Stewart Films, producing documentaries.

Sources

P. Noble (ed) ‘British Film and Television Year Book 1956/57’ (London, 1956), p.287: NoS Number 116474; New Series Pictorial Number 192; Date released 7/12/1939: NoS Number 345501; Mining Review 2nd Year Number 5; Date released January 1949: NoS Number 345647: Mining Review 3rd Year Number 7; Date released March 1950.