British Pathé films: Telescopes and astronomy.

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While trawling YouTube for astronomical videos I came across a whole range of historical films from British Pathé. From pre-WW2 to later decades, they range over a great many historical instruments and users in action. Including amateurs like HP Wilkins the famous Moon mapper shown with his 18" back garden telescope and unbelievably detailed map drawings. Or George Hole, the famous, British large telescope builder who made instruments which dwarfed many of today's Dobsonians. Note the attention to function rather than finish. With sawn finished, painted planks clearly visible. These chaps were working in ordinary back gardens overlooked by housing estates.

It is well worth viewing many of these films if one can cope with the distinctive and extremely dated "propagandist" voice-overs. Turning down the sound will usually work wonders and remove some of the inaccuracies. "Lens" is frequently interchanged with "mirror" in reflecting telescopes, for example. Which may be, and probably is, extremely pedantic on my part but typical of journalistic license and ignorance.



From Hurstmonceux to The Vatican to large US telescopes these wonderful instruments are usually shown in actual use. A far cry from anything the BBC ever put together to pad out the gaps between their vital [and usually overrunning] sports coverage and domestic politics drones.

The films are not yet well organized for content. So that even searching for (british + pathé + astronomy + telescopes=) produces a lot of irrelevant "hits". Though it is well worth being patient to unearth some really fascinating gems. I keep wondering whether the dress code was always formal even when the cameras were not actually rolling?

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