News on Screen

Henry Howse was a cameraman who filmed for the Salvation Army in Palestine in 1906. This was apparently part of a larger project, for in 1907 the Kinematograph Weekly reported that ‘Mr. Howse of the Walturdaw Co.' had returned from his trip round the world. He had visited seventeen countries, and it was claimed that ‘he had been arrested in Turkey as a spy, and confined in prison; he had crossed the deserts of China; he had been suspended by ropes over the crater of Vesuvius, and had...nothing to show for it but yards of blurred films.' In 1909 Howse returned to China with his nephew, the cameraman Ernest Palmer, this time working for the China Inland Mission, but by 1910 he was back in London working for the Tyler Film Company. In 1920 Howse was involved with the filming of Harold Shaw’s ‘Under Two Czars,' which was released as ‘The Land of Mystery,' and while in Berlin provided some film of rioting for the Topical Budget. The story appeared as ‘BERLIN UNDER ARMS’ in No.449-1 of April 1920, and the subtitle claims that ‘This picture was taken at the Brandenburg Gate while the operator, Mr Henry House [sic], was being prodded in the back by a bayonet.' In 1921 ‘W.H. Howse’ was noted as cameraman on the International Artists’ film ‘The Night Hawk.'

Sources

Kinematograph Weekly, 25/7/1907, p.170, ‘Brevities’: London Magazine, March 1908, ‘The Romance of the Cinematograph,' p.4: K. Brownlow ‘The War, the West, and the Wilderness’ (1979), pp.415-7: NFTVA, Luke McKernan’s biographical index of Topical Budget staff.