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www.ournavy.org.uk
Webmaster:
David Clover
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Newspaper References
A comprehensive collection of newspaper references (PDF) includes advertisements and reviews,
covering West’s photographic
(1881-1897) and cinematographic (1898-1913) career. It contains additional reference material
relating to promotion,
advertising, press interviews and reviews, in some cases, scene by scene, of the detailed content of the 'Our Navy' film shows. It is updated
periodically.
The various topics listed on the left column of this page and in the searchable Newspaper References extracted from the
British Newspaper Archive (containing 2,550 entries drawn from nearly 390 individual newspaper titles in the UK,
Canada, New Zealand and Australia) provide additional insights to the topics described below.
A pioneering film maker
Alfred
John West (1857-1937) was active as a cinematographer from
1897 to
1913. He
claimed
to be amongst the first (after Robert
W. Paul) to exhibit publicly in the
UK, and his films of Naval, Military and later, more general subjects were presented under
the general titles of 'Our Navy' and 'Our Army', later
adding 'Our Colonies' and 'Our Pleasure Fleet'.
Royal Commands - 1898 and 1901
In 1898, he filmed the cruise of H.M.S.
Crescent commanded by the Queen's grandson George,
Duke of York. On the return of the ship to Portsmouth, West showed the films to Queen Victoria at
Osborne in August 1898. In 1901, film of the 8 month world cruise of H.M.S. Ophir with the
Prince and Princess of Wales on board was shown
to Edward VII
at Sandringham.
Early Film Shows
West claimed that these were some of the earliest 'Royal
Command' film
performances in the UK though despite his claim, he was not the only
cinematographer who had shown films to royalty.
Encouraged by Senior Naval Officers and members of The Navy League and others, his career took off quickly after capitalising heavily on
these Royal Commands in his first
years at The Polytechnic. Almost immediately, he organised tours of the shows
in halls in cities towns and villages, nationally and internationally. The shows mixed film and slides along with sound effects, music, narration and recitation.
The
earliest film shows were at the Portland Hall then the Victoria
Hall in Portsmouth, but following the success of his Royal
Command at Osborne, in 1899, West moved his operations to The
Polytechnic Regent Street, London (now the Regent
Street Cinema at The University of Westminster) and continued
there and elsewhere in London including the People’s Palace in Mile End Road
and East Ham Town Hall with packed houses until around 1913. He
employed a large number of technical and publicity staff and several
touring companies which were active right across the UK.
Australia and New Zealand
An early tour of Australia and New Zealand was made in 1901 by the
company under the leadership of Music Hall actor and opera singer George
Snazelle. An account of that tour (and all other tours made by the
many ''Our Navy'' teams across the UK) based on contemporary reviews
and advertisements can be searched for and found in the detailed (very
long) PDF file containing abstracts of newspaper references compiled from
digitised sources.
Company Registration
The film company 'Our Navy'
was incorporated in 1902 as Limited Company number: 72532
The Polytechnic and touring nationwide
West's documentary films of life in the Navy and the Army became a most
successful venture from 1898 to around 1910, being exhibited around the UK
and in
Canada, Australia and India. There was a permanent exhibition of
his films at the Polytechnic
Institute, Regent Street, University of
Westminster Contemporary
reports) London, with a new programme being put on every year,
featuring not only scenes of activity in the Services, but also footage
filmed in various of this country's then Colonies and Dominions. West
claimed in 1913 that over three million people had seen his films.
Collaboration with contemporaries
It's clear from a survey of newspaper articles that he collaborated
rather more than he claimed with other early exhibitors such as Charles
Urban and Cecil Hepworth (whom he acknowledged as having
assisted him in complying with the new LCC Regulations at his first London show). His
films appear in their catalogues,
and he in turn drew from theirs to make up interesting programmes. In
September 1905 a show at The Victoria Hall, Southsea included
Hepworth's 'Rescued by Rover' though the Naval, Military and
other material exclusive to him
made up the bulk of relatively monothematic programmes until around
1910.
By then, the advent of purpose-built 'Picture Houses'
and the new audiences demanded a broader and more popular approach to filmic content. New regulations meant that the projector had to be housed in a separate room and this was not appropriate for the old exhibition style in halls of a projector being brought in and
sited behind the audience. West therefore turned to a 'hiring out' model of business which soon overwhelmed his organisation so great was the demand for the films.
Accordingly he sold the business to B.B. Hiring Service of Glasgow
but as he says in his memoir 'I kept the negatives'.
From 1912, we find 'Our Navy' often in an uncomfortable supporting role as a
weekly 'part work' alongside films in “Continuous Performances” such as “Polidor's Cycle
Adventure”, "A Factory Girl's Honour", "“The
Lost Love Letter” and "The amateur ventriloquist.”
Retirement and death
After retiring in 1913, West
moved to
Totland Bay in the Isle of Wight where he had a smallholding
growing and selling violets and later to 20 Southsea Terrace in Portsmouth (the same
house
where Peter Sellers
the character actor was born in 1920). In his retirement he toured
around the world spending some time with his family
in Australia. He was for a time a back row chorister in St. Jude's Church, Southsea. His Autobiography
contains much material relating to his experiences during this period.
He spent a short time at 18 Wimbledon Park Road, Southsea.
In his memoir of 1936, he wrote of his feelings in 1918 after the Great War:
"I was content to spend the rest of days in quiet retirement, sitting back and watching others make new discoveries along the path where I had been the pioneer."
Alfred
West died on 15 January
1937 in a Southsea nursing home at 3 Brading Avenue, after contracting pneumonia. He is buried
with his wife Elizabeth Lucy (1858-1930) in Highland Road Cemetery (E Plot, Row 19, Grave 14).
Alfred
West's Grant of Probate lists the value of his Estate
at death as £1733 2s 6d. (the equivalent of £104,683 in 2026)
West's Memoirs
West's unpublished
autobiography (1936) - 'Sea
Salts and Celluloid'
is available in a PDF transcription from the original
typescript. It has been offered for publication, but has not so far
found a suitable publisher. This online copy is freely available.
West was
encouraged and assisted in writing his memoirs by his Grandson, Antony
(Tony) Scott Clover (1917-1998), who was himself an amateur film-maker in the 1930s in Portsmouth. The
present research and documentation is being developed by West's Great
Grandson - David
Clover West's direct male descendant is Melbourne technologist Simon
West who lives in Willamstown, Victoria, Australia.
West's Family
West's family were all involved in the
photographic
business (G. West and later G. West and Sons) founded by his
photographer father, (also a Master Carpenter)
George West at 97 High Street in Gosport. Alfred later moved to
'Rozel' at 7 Villiers Road, Southsea, opening photographic
studios nearby at 72 and 84 Palmerston Road Southsea.
Alfred
John West F.R.G.S. (born 01/08/1857) was married to
Elizabeth Lucy West
(nee House and born 08/02/1858). Elizabeth Lucy West was the eldest of
the 18 children of Charles William House and Marian House (nee
Harvey)
of Alverstoke, Gosport, Hants. As well as Gladys Marian Clover, she and
Alfred
West had two sons, the elder being Frederick
Charles who emigrated to Australia
before 1914, joined the Australian Imperial Force
on 22 August 1914 a month after the declaration of war, embarked from
Fremantle on 2 November 1914 and served as a Sergeant with the Royal
Australian Field Artillery Brigade 3, Battery 8 in Gallipoli, then in
the Middle East and the Western Front.
Frederick West returned from the war on 25 February 1919
to develop a cereal and sheep farm 'Cumuldarnup' (meaning "Breeding
place of possums") ten miles South of the township of Ongerup,
and about 80 miles NNE of the port of Albany
on the South Coast of Western Australia. He married Violet Attree (of
Southsea) and they had two sons, Michael and Gerald. Frederick
undertook some filming in India for 'Our Navy' on behalf of Alfred West.
His younger son, John Albert, married late in life and had no children.
G. West and Son, Photographers, Gosport
Alfred West was an
international award winning marine and
yachting photographer from
the mid-1880s to
1900. He travelled to New York to photograph the America's Cup duel in
1893 between Defender (NYC) and Lord Dunraven's 'Valkyrie III (RYS).
His photographs were used in evidence in the adjudication of a claimed
'foul' of the American vessel by the British yacht.
Prior to his taking up
cinematography, A.J. West
and his brother, George, were partners in the firm of "G. West and
Sons",
Photographers of Gosport and Southsea. In about 1880, A.J. West started to
specialise in photographing the racing yachts of the time. Due to
his invention of an instantaneous shutter
and using sensitive dry
plates on
his camera, he was the first photographer to take close-up pictures of
yachts under way at speed. As a result he was awarded many medals for his
pictures (the most famous of them being the "Mohawk" - see
right hand
column) both in the UK and in other countries including the USA and
Ireland.
G.
West and
Sons had been closely involved in taking pictures of Naval subjects,
and although the Wests claimed some exclusivity of access, others in
the area including Stephen Cribb, Charles Cozens and the Barkshire
Brothers were closely
involved in photographing Naval scenes.
In 1897 Alfred West having enthusiastically taken up the then new art of cinematography and thereby gaining
exclusive access to Naval establishments and ships, he
abandoned yacht photography, selling his archive of plates and
copyright to Alfred and Frank Beken of Cowes (though
according to Frank
Beken's journal, the transaction was not
completed till 1916). West's yacht photograph plates,
when stored at Beken's, are said to be numbered from 500 to 10250.
Sale of the West photographic archive
In
around
2018, the archive of glass plates were
sold on from Beken to the Brett
Gallery at Midhurst and
are being scanned and
catalogued for the creation of high quality large scale art prints.
The
Brett
Gallery supplies
high-quality reproductions of West's
yachting photographs digitised from the original plates. There's an
account there of how an original
glass plate is prepared by the Brett
Gallery to make a superb modern large scale print.
Surviving Films and Pictures
Although
believed lost for many years, a
few of A.J. West's film sequences have survived,
and have been positively identified by relating them to the detailed catalogue he
prepared when the business was sold in 1913. (Full PDF facsimile catalogue
5.2Mb Text transcript 178k) A paper original copy is
held in the British
Library). Some of West's film material is held by the Wessex
Film & Sound Archive, Hampshire Record Office, Winchester, UK who
can arrange broadcast quality versions.
Sale and repurposing of Film Stock
West's
film stock was sold in
1913 to B.B.
Film Hiring Service
in Glasgow who made compilations of the material for picture houses.
However, the business did not prosper and the film material was sold on
after the firm went bankrupt in 1917. It then passed through
other hands, eventually it is believed to the Gaumont British Film Company. But it is presumed
to have been destroyed at some point though fragments have
resurfaced occasionally and are curated by the BFI
Postcards and Albums
Postcard material from the 'Our Navy' series is currently being collated as an
academic project at Portsmouth
University by George Malcomson. There is also a large collection of
pictures in
albums being collated by Elizabeth
Gibbon, Curator, Historic Photographs & Ship
Plans at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. This is part
of the 'Richard Perkins collection' of over 12,000
negatives, which
includes the large collection of G. West and Son negatives of Royal
Naval vessels
photographed at Portsmouth between 1887-1920.
Internet Movie Database
The Internet Movie Database also catalogues a
number of clips from 1898 and 1904, though it is not yet known if this
means that more material
exists in archives. If material is found, please contact the webmaster
of this website or the Wessex Sound and Film Archive linked below.
West and 'Our Navy' Research
As
part
of his
studies at the
University of East
Anglia, Russell Baldwin has written a valuable
thesis (PDF format) based around the life of A.J. West which places
him for the first time in his historic and cultural context. Many articles and surveys have been undertaken
about Alfred West and Our Navy making use of the material collated and
placed on the internet by David Clover from 1998 onwards.
Enquiries can be sent to the webmaster (address at foot of page)
by
anyone seeking help in researching into the life and work of Alfred
John West and the 'Our Navy' series.
Sources of information
This
website has been compiled from paper and electronic material held in
the Clover Family archives, and is presented in the hope that
A.J. West's pioneering work as a cinematographer and photographer will
come to further notice.
There is much additional material in the Wessex Sound and Film Archive at Winchester
and in the Barnes Collection Archive at the Hove Museum
(see also Screen Archive South East) as well as in The
National Maritime Museum, Beken of Cowes,
and under collection and study at Portsmouth University
See Also:
Who's Who of
Victorian
Cinema
British Film Institute
The
Bill Douglas Centre, Exeter
Beken of Cowes
Wessex Film and Sound Archive
Barnes Collection Archive (Can be viewed on
request at Brighton and Hove Museums)
University
of East Anglia
Early Cinema Links
(from Charles Urban, Motion Picture Pioneer).
National Maritime Museum
The Magic
Lantern Society
The Nelson
Society
'The Magic Screen' Regent Street Polytechnic Cinema
This website is curated by:
Webmaster: David
Clover
www.ournavy.org.uk
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Above: Photo - Pioneers of the British Film, John
Barnes, Bishopsgate Press, 1983, ISBN 1-85219-012-4
Top left:
9 frame clip showing sailors at a skating rink, Southsea Promenade
Circa. 1900. The clip had been printed as series of photographed
contact frames from
the margin of the complete printed catalogue (PDF Format) of films prepared
when West sold the 'Our Navy' business in 1913. (This document is
also
held in the British Library as UIN
BLL01003893947,Shelfmark(s): General Reference Collection 8829.k.34)
Foot of
column:
Two frame animation of the 'Turbinia' at speed in 1897
from the same film catalogue
Below:
The
'Mohawk' racing off Hurst Castle at the Royal
Southampton Regatta in 1884 - photographed in the act of winning a
first prize. This photograph was awarded the Gold Medal at the St Louis
Convention for which 9 other countries competed. Note the crew member
at the cross-trees retrieving the flying outhaul. AJ West reported that
this rope nearly got tangled in his own craft (see his Autobiography) and an account in The Portsmouth Evening News
12/09/1895 (British Newspaper archive) (Copyright Beken of
Cowes)
(G. West & Son, Southsea)
Below:
Typical format of a white ink attribution embossed on a
framed photograph
Below:
The
'Chittywee' owned by Lord Francis Cecil was
photographed racing at the Royal Portsmouth Corinthian Yacht Club
Regatta in Osborne Bay in the year 1882. (Copyright
Beken of
Cowes) Also submitted for the St Louis Convention Gold Medal.
A.J. West
filming at the Fleet Review in 1911. Shows Battleship 'HMS
Indefatigable' on left
(Wessex Film Archive)
A.J. West and camera filming 'Our
Army' sequences
(George Malcolmson).
"… Mr
Alfred West has accomplished with
his pictures what Mr. Rudyard Kipling
has done in story and verse …………….."
‘MORNING
POST’, 1905
West's contemporary
Obituary: "His claim to be 'the grandfather of the
films'
is one that cannot be challenged" (Hampshire Telegraph and Post
January 22 1937)
Commander Ronald Strudd in 1950:
“I loved it; I revelled in it; it shaped my life. Whereas most young boys eventually lose their ambition
to be cowboys and Indians when they emerge from the dark, awe-inspiring world of the cinema and step out into the street again,
somehow that world of ironclads and Jack Tars continued to hold sway over my imagination. If ever a film impressed a boy it was that one,
and when, one afternoon, my mother, over a cup of tea, asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, very simply,
very definitely, ‘I’m going to be a sailor’.”
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