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Cinema was fourteen years old, and Britain on the cusp of a cinema-building boom, when the government first introduced legislation governing cinemas.   The 1909 Cinematograph Act was introduced in response to concerns regarding the safety of the buildings in which films were shown following a number of incidents involving highly unstable nitrate film stock setting fire to a number of cinemas.   Ironically, one of the most highly publicised incidents, the death of 16 children in a cinema in Barnsley who were crushed to death by a panicked crowd, arose not because of fire but through lack of crowd control.

 The Cinematograph Act became enforceable on 1^st January 1910, and was almost immediately the focus of controversial debate.   Some local authorities, under whose control the Act placed cinemas, chose to interpret the Act’s definition of ‘inflammable films’ as referring to their content as well as their physical nature, giving each authority the right to censor films as it saw fit.

  Since its birth, certain sections of society had blamed cinema as the cause of many of its ills, including crime, delinquency and a decline in moral standards.   Many complained that cinemas prevented people from attending church on Sundays (conveniently ignoring the fact that cinema attendances had been declining long before the invention of cinema). Moralists also blamed movies for the increase of delinquency – which, again, had been on the increase prior to cinema’s birth.   Their argument was bolstered by the excuse given by many youngsters when caught misbehaving that they got the idea for their misdeeds from the pictures.

 The authorities therefore used their new powers to threaten cinema owners with the loss of their licences if they screened films the authority considered unsuitable, even though the owner might have followed all of the Act’s specific requirements.   Most also banned cinemas from opening on Sundays.

 The situation became even more confused when it became clear that local authorities were establishing individual guidelines meaning that some films were considered acceptable in some areas of the country, but were banned or censored in others.   Naturally, this created huge problems for filmmakers and exhibitors: the filmmakers were unable to estimate the potential market for their product because of the uncertainty about where it could be exhibited, while cinema owners in areas under the control of the stricter authorities found themselves at a commercial disadvantage to those operating within the boundaries of more liberal authorities.

 In 1910, exhibitors formed the Cinematograph Defence League (replacing the Cinematograph Trade Protection Society) to try and fight their corner.  Then, a year later, the owner of the London Bridge Picture Palace and Cinematograph Theatre in South London was prosecuted by the London County Council under Section 2 of the Act for defying conditions of its licence by opening on Sunday 27^th February 1910 (LCC v Bermondsey Bioscope Co.).   The cinema owner challenged the ban, arguing that the Cinematograph Act 1909 was intended to ensure health and safety and didn’t bestow any legal powers upon local authorities to enforce unrelated conditions.   The LCC was victorious, giving local authorities free rein to enforce any restrictions it felt appropriate.

 The ultimate consequence of the ruling, in 1912, was the formation of the British Board of Film Censors, a private company given the task of examining all films wishing to be released in Gt. Britain and issuing an appropriate certificate in accordance with nationally agreed criteria.   The body was financed by the fees charged to filmmakers to have their films examined, and local authorities began issuing licences to cinema owners with a condition stating that only films possessing a BBFC certificate may be shown on their premises.

The full text of the Cinematograph Act 1909 can be found here

 Sources

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematograph_Act_1909)

 British Film Institute (Michael Brooke) (http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/593589/)

The Dream That Kicks: The Prehistory and Early Years of Cinema in Britain. Contributors: Michael Chanan - author. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1995. Page Numbers: 208-211.

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