Birth of the movies

You thought they started in France with the Lumière brothers in the mid-1890s? So did I.

In fact they began in 1888 in, of all places, Leeds, and here's the evidence: two films shot by Louis Le Prince, each of which runs for two (2) seconds.

This one shows traffic crossing Leeds Bridge:



This one captures four folk milling about in a garden in the Leeds suburb of Roundhay:



Some of the scenes that didn't made it into the final cut:



A sombre postscript

• The lady walking backwards in the garden scene, Sarah Whitley, died ten days later.

• Louis Le Prince himself mysteriously vanished from a train in France in 1890.

• His son Adolphe Le Prince - the young man in the garden scene - was shot dead on Fire Island, New York, in 1902.