author logo, Florence Cole
Florence Cole as a child

Saturday morning pictures: cinemas for children in 1900s working class London

Saturday morning cinema, known as 'Saturday morning pictures' was another favourite pleasure for the children who lived near us on the Huxley Estate in the early 1900s. We paid a penny each and came out with an orange or a bag of sweets.

If you have an old photo which would illustrate this page, I would very much appreciate a copy. Pat Cryer

The Alcazar Picture House / theatre in Edmonton, destroyed in World War Two

 My mother did not say which Picture House she went to in Edmonton. It could have been this one, the Alcazar which was destroyed in World War Two.

The films were the silent ones and the pianist would give the effects by playing music to add to the excitement of what was being shown. Pianists invariably did their job well.

There was always a serial running over several weeks. The Perils of Pauline come to mind. Every episode ended on a dramatic climax which kept us children coming back next week for more. The actress who featured a lot in the serials was Pearl White. The villain of the piece would capture her, tie her up and put her somewhere terrifying like on the railway line of an oncoming train. We took these films most seriously. When gringo*  was about to attack from behind, we children would shout out, "Look behind you" - as if she could hear us! - and boo. Harold <illegible> was the actor for thrills, How we would scream when he was about to fall from a five storey building. Children of today would not turn a hair at such things.

The old Empire Music Hall, Edmonton, Middlesex

Another possibility could have been the Empire° which was primarily a music hall venue.

Another cinema was in Angel Road and called the Hippodrome. It started life as a theatre and was then converted to cinema. It was still a cinema when it closed just after WWII. Then it was used as a billiard hall after which it lay derelict for many years. The site is now a car park. An interesting story is that at one time there were no toilets inside and customers had to go out of the building and avail themselves of the local householders nearby, probably for a fee°.

  

* Gringo seems to have been a term for the bad American in the film.

° Information added to my mother's material, courtesy of Cliff Raven.

This website Join me in the 1900s is also known as Join me in the 1900's and is © Pat Cryer.

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These recollections from around the time of the 1911 census are of Saturday morning pictures (cinema) for children of working class families in north London (then Middlesex). They were written in the 1980s by my mother, Florence Edith Clarke (born Cole), and are here as a tribute to her memory and to shed light on the history of the early years of the 20th century.