William Shenton ("Bill")

Bill Shenton started as a still cameraman, and for several years ran the ‘technical branch’ of the London Stereoscopic Company. In 1908 he began work as a film cameraman, and during the next few years worked for Clarendon, British and Colonial, Trans-Atlantic, and Broadwest. He then joined the British Actors Film Company, which was founded in 1915, but by 1920 he was with London Films, and was cameraman on ‘Enchantment’ (1920). He then transferred to Ideal, and was cameraman on ‘Beyond the Dreams of Avarice’ (1920), ‘Twelve Pound Look’ (1920), ‘Manchester Man’ (1920), and ‘Handy Andy’ (1921). He then worked on Denison Clift Art Productions’ ‘The Loves of Mary Queen of Scots’ (1923); Ideal’s ‘The Harbour Lights’ (1923); Stoll’s ‘The Colleen Bawn’ (1924), and ‘We Women’ (1925); Graham-Wilcox’s ‘White Heat’ (1926); Gaumont’s ‘Settled Out of Court’ (1925), ‘Somebody’s Darling’ (1925), ‘London Love’ (1926), and ‘Mademoiselle From Armentieres’ (1926); Astra-National’s ‘The Flag Lieutenant’ (1926), and Neo-Art’s ‘Further Adventures of the Flag Lieutenant’ (1927); Neo-Art’s ‘The Fake’ (1927); British International Pictures’ ‘The Silver Lining’ (1927); British and Dominion’s ‘The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernell’ (1928); First National-Pathe’s ‘The Ware Case’ (1928). In 1933 Shenton was cameraman for John Grierson’s ‘So This is London’ (1935), and for the Empire Marketing Board’s ‘London Town’ (1933).

In 1934 Shenton also photographed the GPO film ‘BBC - Droitwich’ (1934), and Harry Watt, one of the directors, recalled him as ‘a charming old chap’: ‘He had been, in the twenties, an ace feature-film cameraman, and had photographed most of the Betty Balfour pictures. But he had hit the bottle, and in the change over to sound, had got left behind. He had joined the small army of freelance cameramen who existed at that time, precariously wandering from newsreel to publicity film to documentary.' Shenton’s freelance newsreel work seems to have been for Pathe, who credited him in the camera teams for ‘BY 3 CLEAR GOALS!' in Pathe Super Sound Gazette No.33/35 of May 1933, and for ‘THE BOAT RACE’ in No.34/23 and ‘THE GRAND NATIONAL, 1934’ in No.34/25, both of March 1934. Shenton’s final credits are for ‘STOP PRESS!' - film of the wedding of the Duke of Kent - in No.34/96 of November 1934, and ‘GRAND NATIONAL, 1935’ in No.35/26 of April 1935. An alcoholic, he died of malnutrition in 1935.

Sources

Kine Year Book 1921, p.594, and Kine Year Book 1926, p.256, ‘William Shenton’: H. Watt ‘Don’t Look at the Camera’ (London, 1974), pp.66-7.