The Cinematograph Act 1909 ( 9 Edw. 7. c. 30) is an act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...

. It was the first

primary legislation Primary legislation and secondary legislation (the latter also called delegated legislation or subordinate legislation) are two forms of law, created respectively by the legislative and executive branches of governments in representative democ ...

in the UK which specifically regulated the

film industry The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production company, production companies, film studios, cinematography, animation, film production, screenwriting, pre- ...

. It unintentionally provided the legal basis for

film censorship Film censorship is the censorship of motion pictures, either through the excising of certain frames or scenes, or outright banning of films in their entirety. Film censorship typically occurs as a result of political or moral objections to a fi ...

, leading to the establishment of the

British Board of Film Censors The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films A film, also known as a movie ...

in 1912.

Origins

During the 1890s and 1900s, most film exhibition took place in temporary venues such as

fairground Fairground most typically refers to a permanent space that hosts fairs. Fairground, Fairgrounds, Fair Ground or Fair Grounds may also refer to: Places Canada * Fairground, Ontario, a community United States * Fairground, St. Louis, a neighbo ...

music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was most popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850, through the World War I, Great War. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as Varie ...

s and hastily converted shops (so-called '

penny gaff A penny gaff was a form of popular entertainment for the lower classes in 19th-century England. It consisted of short, theatrical entertainments which could be staged wherever space permitted, such as the back room of a public house or small hal ...

s'). The film then in use was made from the highly flammable

cellulose nitrate Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...

base. Combined with

limelight Limelight (also known as Drummond light or calcium light)James R. Smith (2004). ''San Francisco's Lost Landmarks'', Quill Driver Books. is a non-electric type of stage lighting that was once used in theatres and music halls. An intense illum ...

illumination, this created a significant safety hazard, resulting in a number of fatal fires. After the

Bazar de la Charité The ''Bazar de la Charité'' was an annual charity event orchestrated by the French Catholic aristocracy in Paris beginning in 1885, when it was first organised by Englishman Henry Blount, the son of banker Sir Edward Blount, a financier of ra ...

fire in Paris in 1897, where 126 people lost their lives, the London City Council issued specific fire regulations to licensed theatres in 1898 as a forerunner to the Cinematograph Act. The 1909 Act specified a strict building code which required, amongst other things, that the projector be enclosed within a fire resisting enclosure. All commercial cinemas (defined as any business which admitted members of the public to see films in exchange for payment) had to comply with these regulations. In order to enforce this each cinema had to be inspected and licensed by the

local authority Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of a higher-level political or administrative unit, such a ...

. The Act was amended in the wake of the 1929

Glen Cinema Disaster The Glen Cinema disaster was a deadly crowd crush caused by a smoking film canister at a Movie theater, cinema in Paisley, Scotland, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, on 31 December 1929. The resulting panic and Crowd collapses and crushes, crush ...

in order to give local authorities more powers to regulate the number of emergency exits and insist on other safety measures.

Legal basis of censorship

In the following year, the owner of the London Bridge Picture Palace and Cinematograph Theatre, in South London, was prosecuted under Section 2 of the Act after he defied a condition of the licence issued by the local authority, the

London County Council The London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today ...

, by opening on a Sunday (27 February 1910). In the appeal hearing which resulted, the cinema owner argued that the intention of the 1909 Act was simply to ensure health and safety, and that authorities had no legal power to attach unrelated conditions to cinemas' licences. The LCC won the appeal, which established the precedent that the purpose of restrictions on a cinema licence did not have to be restricted to fire prevention. In the aftermath of this case, local authorities across the country began to censor the content of films, using their licensing powers under the 1909 Act. This concerned the film industry, which was worried that inconsistent censorship policies would undermine it: under this ad hoc system, a film-maker had no way of knowing the size of his potential market (i.e. how many authorities would allow or ban his film), and cinema owners in areas with strict censorship policies would suffer financially compared to those in more liberal towns. The result was the creation of the British Board of Film Censors in 1912, a private company which examined and certified films according to nationally agreed criteria. It was financed by the fees paid by film-makers to the BBFC to have their films examined. Councils began to issue cinema licences with a provision stating that they may show only films which had been passed by the BBFC, rather than censoring films themselves. Although the Act itself was later superseded, its provisions remain the legal basis on which the content of films for cinema exhibition is regulated in the UK. There are occasionally high-profile cases in which a local authority overrules a BBFC decision within its given jurisdiction, either to raise the certificate or ban outright films the Board has passed, or to allow screening of films it has not. The BBFC was given statutory powers for the first time in 1985, when it was designated as the classifying authority under the

Video Recordings Act 1984 The Video Recordings Act 1984 (c. 39) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was passed in 1984. It states that commercial video recordings offered for sale or for hire within the UK must carry a classification that has been agre ...

, in respect of most commercial video recordings sold or hired in the UK. But these powers do not affect theatrical exhibition, the legal regulation of which remains with local authorities. In the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...

, the Censorship of Films Act 1923 established an Official Censor of Films and removed the right of local authorities to attach censorship conditions to cinema licences.

Repeal

The 1909 act was repealed in the United Kingdom by the Cinema Act 1985 and in the Republic of Ireland by the Fire Services Act 1981.

Origins

Legal basis of censorship

Repeal

References

Further reading