Gaumont British News

Dates

1934 - 1959

History

Gaumont British News was first released in January 1934, as a replacement for the Gaumont Graphic and Gaumont Sound News, and ran until January 1959. To guarantee national coverage, Gaumont produced numerous local stories for addition to the main reel, and a special edition of the Gaumont British News was also regularly released for Dublin.

The editorial structure of the Gaumont British News involved both a ‘producer’ and an ‘editor’. L. Castleton-Knight was the overall ‘producer’ of the Gaumont British News from 1934 to 1958, but Louis Behr was the reel’s first ‘editorial manager,' with R.S. Howard as the ‘editor.' Behr left Gaumont in 1936, but Howard remained as editor of the Gaumont British News until at least 1949.

Provenance

The Gaumont British News section of the database has been compiled from photocopies of the original issue sheets in the Slade Film History Register. Many of the originals were faded or damaged; as a result, the copies are incomplete or illegible. These instances have been noted in the database.

Other Information

Note: The Gaumont British company was the British arm of the French Gaumont company. The company name was hyphenated occasionally in the various newsreels and cinemagazines that the company issued in Britain, but it was most commonly not used at all, and for consistency’s sake the hyphen has not been used on the database.

The rights to Gaumont British News are now held by Reuters Television and are managed for them by the ITN Source. The ITN Source holds a complete run, while the BFI National Archive holds a substantial amount of the original film material for the period 1931-1939, 1945-1951, and the Imperial War Museum Film & Video Archive for the war period, owing to an agreement to copy the original nitrate material with former owners Visnews.

Films in this series can be obtained from:

Film Archive

Name

Reuters Archive Licensing: Screen Ocean

Email

info@screenocean.com

Web

http://reuters.screenocean.com/

Phone

+44(0)1954 262052

Address

124 Horseferry Road,
London
SW1P 2TX

Notes

British Pathe Ltd (qv) also handles the Reuters Historical Collection, which includes the British Paramount, Empire British, Gaumont Graphic and Gaumont British newsreels.

Series held

View all series held by Reuters Archive Licensing: Screen Ocean