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The Brighton
School and
the Birth of
British Film

f r a n k gr ay
The Brighton School and the Birth of British Film
 Frank Gray

The Brighton School

and the Birth of
British Film
Frank Gray
University of Brighton
Brighton, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-17504-7    ISBN 978-3-030-17505-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17505-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.

Cover illustration: eStudio Calamar

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Sue
 Contents

1 Introduction   3

2 Investigating the Brighton School  19

3 Invention and Wonder: The Arrival of Film in Britain and

Brighton, 1894–1896  41

4 Wonders and Marvels: Smith’s Early Years  79

5 1897: Smith Turns to Film 113

6 Smith’s Visions and Transformations: The Films of 1898153

7 Smith’s Edited Films, 1899–1903173

8 Williamson’s Kinematograph Films 213

9 Williamson’s Picture Stories 243

vii
viii CONTENTS

10 Transitions, Chains and Flows 269

Resources and Bibliography 279

Index293
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 The Kiss in the Tunnel, G.A. Smith, 1899. Courtesy of BFI
National Archive. Albert and Laura Bayley Smith within the
film’s set, St Ann’s Well Gardens, Hove 1
Fig. 2.1 Grandma’s Reading Glass, G.A. Smith, 1900. Courtesy of BFI
National Archive 17
Fig. 3.1 King’s Road and the West Pier, Brighton, c. 1896. London
Stereoscopic and Photographic Company. Courtesy of Screen
Archive South East. The Edison Kinetoscope was presented here
in 1895 39
Fig. 4.1 Brighton Aquarium, Brighton, c. 1890. Stereoview, Lombardi &
Co., Brighton. Courtesy of Screen Archive South East. The
Aquarium presented mesmerism shows, pantomimes, the magic
lantern, the kinetoscope and the cinematograph 77
Fig. 5.1 Hanging Out the Clothes, G.A. Smith, 1897. Courtesy of BFI
National Archive. Laura Bayley, Tom Green and Nellie Green, St
Ann’s Well Gardens, Hove 111
Fig. 6.1 Santa Claus, G.A. Smith, 1897. Courtesy of BFI National
Archive. The ‘vision scene’ with Albert Smith as Santa 151
Fig. 7.1 Grandma’s Reading Glass, G.A. Smith, 1900. Courtesy of BFI
National Archive. From medium shot to close-up; Harold Smith,
his mother Laura and the eye of Tom Green 171
Fig. 8.1 Fire!, James Williamson, 1901. Courtesy of BFI National
Archive. Exterior of Hove Fire Station, George Street, Hove 211
Fig. 9.1 A Big Swallow, James Williamson, 1901. Courtesy of BFI
National Archive. Close-up of Sam Dalton; produced at
Williamson’s Film Works, 55 Western Road, Hove 241

ix
x LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 10.1 Williamson & Co., Advertisement. The Kinematograph &

Lantern Weekly, 19 September 1907, p. 14. Courtesy of Screen
Archive South East 267
 List of Tables

Table 7.1 Smith’s Finances, 1897–1900: estimated total income and

expenditure, rounded to the nearest pound 176
Table 7.2 Smith’s Use of Film Stock, 1897–1900: estimated expenditure
on film stock in total and by supplier, rounded to the nearest
pound177

xi
Fig. 1.1 The Kiss in the Tunnel, G.A. Smith, 1899. Courtesy of BFI National
Archive. Albert and Laura Bayley Smith within the film’s set, St Ann’s Well
Gardens, Hove
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This study is devoted to the work of two early English film-makers,

George Albert Smith and James Williamson, their key films and the con-
texts in which they were made and screened. The years 1896 to 1903
provide the central focus as it is during this short period that film emerged
as a new technology and a new form of entertainment, and Smith and
Williamson, through their respective practices, made significant contribu-
tions to the development of film form and the development of a new
industry. Internationally, they are known collectively as the ‘Brighton
School’ and positioned as being at the forefront of the birth of the British
film industry. However, despite their ‘place’ within the world history of
film, there has never been a thorough investigation into the nature of the
Brighton School. It was the recognition of this fact that provided the cata-
lyst for the production of this work.
Historically, Smith and Williamson’s film-related activities were
informed and to some extent determined by the very first years of film
production, retailing and exhibition in Britain, Europe and America.
Smith (1864–1959) established his ‘film factory’ at Hove in 1897 and
there he produced his major films. His wife, the actor Laura Bayley, played
an instrumental role in this creative work as it drew upon his, her and their
knowledge of the magic lantern, music hall, theatre, pantomime, popular
literature, mesmerism and the work of other film-makers. In this context,
two very significant edited films were made: The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899)
and Grandma’s Reading Glass (1900).

© The Author(s) 2019 3

F. Gray, The Brighton School and the Birth of British Film,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17505-4_1
4 F. GRAY

Williamson (1855–1933) drew on similar impulses for his films as well

as photography, aspects of contemporary English life and current events
such as the Anglo-Boer War and the Boxer Rebellion. His films from 1900
built upon Smith’s conception of the shot and the edited sequence, and,
as a result, he produced his first multi-shot narrative works—Attack on a
China Mission (1900) and Fire! (1901). Smith and Williamson provided
their contemporary film-makers with a new understanding of the edited
film—a concept which would enable film-makers to move beyond the
paradigm of theatre and into a consciousness determined by the develop-
ing nature of cinematography itself. Their work became known quickly
across Europe and America, and it was not only interpreted by other film-­
makers but also plagiarised.
This study begins by examining the historiography of the Brighton
School and then, within an overarching chronological construction, it
examines the arrival of the first 35mm films in Britain in 1894 and the first
film exhibitions in Brighton in 1895, the first projection of film in Brighton
in 1896, the significance of Robert Paul, Smith’s establishment of his film
processing works in 1897 and his progression from the production of
single-shot films to trick films to multi-shot films from 1897 to 1900. It
then turns to Williamson’s multi-shot realist narratives of 1900–1903 and
concludes with a consideration of the exhibition of his film, The Soldier’s
Return (1902). This linear history carefully demonstrates the ways in
which these film-makers cultivated a very particular understanding of this
new medium, its capabilities and its commercial potential. It pays atten-
tion to the fact that they made a significant contribution to the evolution
of the concept of editing (the combination of individual shots of film into
a distinctive whole). By doing so, they positioned editing as fundamental
to film’s ability as a medium to organise and present sequential and con-
tinuous action.
The study works to locate Smith and Williamson and their films in rela-
tionship to an understanding of early European and American film history;
the emergence of a British film culture in the 1890s and 1900s; the evolu-
tion of particular film genres such as comedy, ‘trick films’ and rescue dra-
mas through the use of particular themes, techniques, characters and
narrative structures; and the explicit and implicit ideological expression of
contemporary ideas and issues. This approach is designed not only to illu-
minate the nature of particular films but also to provide a rationale for
assigning a Smith film, for instance, with a particular authorial and histori-
cal character.
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

Smith and Williamson’s films have tended to be read as simple, ‘early’

and ‘primitive’ because of their short lengths, theatrical staging, lack of
sustained narrative action and the relative absence of editing. The assump-
tion is that such texts are ‘immature’ and can best be understood by posi-
tioning them within a teleological portrait of early cinema which charts
the evolution of film form from such one-minute, unedited works to the
‘mature’, edited, multireel narrative films which began to appear in the
1910s. This formalist approach can be applied to the work of Smith and
Williamson because of their contributions to the early history of film form.
This study however is not focused exclusively on textual analyses
detached from the historical circumstances in which these particular texts
were produced and consumed. It recognises the need to interpret early
cinema as a relatively complex and sophisticated cultural and commercial
practice and, as such, requires the texts in question to be attached to his-
tory. It therefore presents relevant contextual histories not as ‘back-
ground information’ but as constituent elements of this history. These
interactions between text and context, between film and history, have
been investigated in order to create a dialectic that should be seen as
essential for the study of cultural artefacts of this kind. This study there-
fore mounts a broad historical investigation into the many histories rel-
evant to our understanding of the origins, meanings and uses of the films
made by Smith and Williamson from 1897 to 1903. Their work and
these micro-­histories and analyses are considered in terms of their rele-
vance generally to the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras and par-
ticularly to a dynamic set of cultural, aesthetic, economic, geographical
and technological relationships and frameworks that influenced not only
their activities as film-­makers but also the exhibition of their films, their
reception by audiences and, more broadly, the emergence of a
new industry.
Framing these relationships is the relevant macro-framework presented
by the grand narrative of the Second Industrial Revolution.1 John Mann
provides a succinct definition of its seismic character: ‘Between 1880 and
1914, most Western countries experienced their most rapid economic
growth. Agriculture was transformed, and migration from agriculture to
the towns and overseas reached its highest levels. The “Second Industrial
Revolution” brought big capital, high science, and complex technology
especially into three industries—iron and steel, metal manufacturing, and
chemicals. […] This second revolution in economic power changed soci-
eties’ (Mann 2012, p. 597).
6 F. GRAY

Britain was thoroughly revolutionised in this period. It became urban-

ised and industrialised with improved health, life expectancy, literacy,
domestic income and leisure time. The new primary technologies (such as
the combustion engine and electricity) and the related networks and inno-
vations they inspired transformed industry, commerce and the everyday
world. This revolution engendered the creation of new cultural and com-
mercial spaces as represented by theatres, concert halls, music halls, art
galleries, libraries, universities, department stores, promenades and parks.
All of these developments also fuelled a new consciousness and a new poli-
tics as marked by the rise of trade unions, the Labour Party and the suf-
fragette movement. Levin has referred to this era’s rapidity of change as
creating a ‘sense of living in the future’ (Levin 2010, p. 9).
Late Victorian and Edwardian capitalism, with its competitive free-­
market ethos, embodied these social and economic changes through the
rise of mass production, standardisation, chain stores (the creation of the
‘multiple’), national marketing (i.e. advertisements, catalogues and trade
periodicals), the use of mail-order and contemporary communications
(the postal service, telegraph and telephone) and nationwide delivery
­networks (the rail and postal services). The practices of photography, the
magic lantern and film were all part of this new culture, being interwoven
into a set of interrelated networks, chains, services and activities that con-
nected manufacturers (producers) to dealers, retailers, exhibitors and
audiences. Smith and Williamson were part of this community of practice,
and, as such, they were embedded within this modern world of produc-
tion, commerce and consumption.

The Historical Contexts

This study draws upon the surviving biographical documentation and a
range of primary sources, such as local newspapers, to piece together the
relevant aspects of the lives of Smith and Williamson in relation to their
work as film-makers. It does not give equal weight to these two men.
Smith dominates this study because he took the first major steps in terms
of developing a ‘film factory’ in Hove and experimenting actively with the
medium. It is also his early life as a mesmerist, pleasure garden manager
and magic lanternist which provides a unique and intriguing context for
his film work. Williamson, the professional chemist, photographer and
photographic retailer, is positioned as first drawing upon Smith’s key cin-
ematographic ideas and then employing them to create texts which in
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

their own terms were genuinely radical in both form and content as well
as simultaneously building what became one of the country’s most suc-
cessful film production companies.
Smith and Williamson were both residents of Hove across the 1890s
and 1900s, so this investigation draws upon the history of Brighton and
Hove in this period in order to situate the production, exhibition and
reception of their films within this geographical and cultural space. At the
end of the Victorian era, Brighton and Hove was a distinctive conurbation
on the south coast of England of marked social and economic contrasts
that hosted a Victorian tourist centre. These twin towns, approximately
fifty miles south of London, had undergone a radical transformation across
the nineteenth century. Brighton began the century with a reputation as a
genteel, fashionable royal resort but then literally exploded after the com-
ing of the railway in the 1840s into a Victorian ‘Las Vegas’ of hotels, guest
houses, theatres, music halls, piers, amusements, an aquarium, restaurants
and shops. Over two miles of the seafront was developed to accommodate
this ‘pleasure world’, known as ‘London-by-the-Sea’, and across the 1890s
over a million visitors visited this centre of amusement and spectacle each
year. In contrast to this familiar identity, Brighton had also developed into
a railway town with small-scale manufacturing and a working-class com-
munity living in densely packed terraced housing in the town’s centre. At
the end of the century, Hove was essentially a suburb of Brighton that
provided a relatively well-designed middle-class environment of wide,
tree-lined streets and spacious homes. It served as a respite from the
energy, diversity and carnival-like environment found next door in
Brighton. (Hove became incorporated as a town in 1897 and was merged
into a single administration with Brighton in 1997. The new ‘Brighton &
Hove’ became a city by Royal Charter in 2001.)
As a site for modern, popular spectacle, Brighton provided entertain-
ments of a local and national standard for working- and middle-class audi-
ences. It also had a very active photographic culture, a history which had
been initiated by William Constable’s opening of his Daguerreotype stu-
dio, the ‘Blue Room’, on Marine Parade in 1841 (Erredge 1862, p. 303).
This was a perfect environment for the film pioneer. To have knowledge
of this entertainment culture and its photographic studios were significant
factors in Smith and Williamson’s use of the new medium. Brighton and
Hove also possessed a natural feature from the early spring to the late sum-
mer of each year—relatively long periods of sunshine. This was essential
for early film production, as it required natural illumination. It also had,
8 F. GRAY

not unexpectedly, a community of actors and theatrical workers that would

be invaluable to the work of these two film-makers.
In this period, Britain and Brighton’s vibrant tourist and entertainment
economies generated great profit for those with interests in it. Smith and
Williamson, because of their respective film enterprises, were part of this
business culture. They were small-scale capitalists whose lives were trans-
formed materially through their involvement with film. As such, they were
also modernists who we can associate with a new technological age of
electricity, the telephone, the motor car, photography and the X-ray—
technologies that were all associated with a new sense of space and time.
At the end of a century of invention and economic transformation, film
became a perfect metaphor for this moment because it was a remarkable
new technology for recording a modern world in motion. It also repre-
sented, through its reproducibility, the new commercial interest in ‘mul-
tiple’ production. Potentially, a Hove-made film could be seen
simultaneously on the same evening in different venues across the country.
They operated ideologically within the established conventions of taste
and pleasure, representing a point of intersection between new technolo-
gies, contemporary ideas and narratives, the leisure industry and the
modern state.
Smith and Williamson were part of the cultural history of the late
Victorian and early Edwardian periods. Their work needs to be approached
in terms of its intertextual relationships with other films and other cultural
texts because of the presence of particular themes and narratives and their
representation of contemporary ideologies. Pertinent connections are
drawn between these films and such fields as popular literature, illustrated
periodicals, theatre, the music hall, pantomime, the magic lantern and
Victorian narrative painting. As introduced above, Smith and Williamson’s
films were developed, used and received by audiences within a very defined
social, cultural and commercial context. As commercial films for audi-
ences, they were obviously the bearers of both explicit and implicit ideolo-
gies related to place, nation, imperialism, race, gender and class. These
ideological discourses are interwoven into each film’s structure and modes
of representation and made manifest through the use of particular sub-
jects, characters, actions, settings and narrative development. However,
their makers did not conceive of these films as crude ideological vehicles
but as pleasurable products for commercial consumption. Their economic
value was paramount and this would be determined by their sale (film
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

prints were sold and not hired in this early period), their use by showmen/
exhibitors and their reception by audiences.
Related to these intertextual relationships are also intermedial relation-
ships. These connect the medium of film, and in particular its use by Smith
and Williamson, to other related media. Of crucial significance in this con-
text is the history of the magic lantern. Before the advent of film, there
had been a European history of the lantern for almost 250 years. The
magic lantern established the fundamental parameters of screen practice:
the projection onto a screen of sets of related imagery; the organisation of
such imagery into a particular narrative order; an audience in a darkened
room, seated in rows facing a projection screen; the presence of a lecturer
to provide the imagery with an oral commentary. Film represents a distinct
stage in this long history of screen practice. Smith and Williamson were
magic lanternists before they were film-makers, and they therefore
imported into their film practices an active awareness of the lantern.
Cognisance of the emerging film industry in Britain, Europe and the
United States is of great importance to this study as Smith and Williamson’s
‘products’ were shaped by contemporary film technology and the nature
of film production and exhibition practices on both sides of the Atlantic.
Being close to Brighton’s theatres and about an hour’s rail journey from
central London ensured that they had knowledge of and access to all of
the major film producers and retailers in the country. From 1897, Smith
cemented this through his development of a business relationship with the
Warwick Trading Company in London and its manager, Charles Urban.
By 1900, it was the country’s largest film producer and retailer. Through
his film processing business, Smith was also part of what could be called a
national film network. He had contacts with film producers across the
country and, through this business, acquired tremendous expertise in film
developing and printing techniques. Similarly, as we will see, Williamson’s
films were widely purchased by music hall and town hall exhibitors. This
placed him in intimate contact with exhibitors as they designed their pro-
grammes for audiences nationwide. These factors positioned these two
film-makers at the forefront of the commercial development of this
new industry.
The application of the business concept of supply chains to the rise of
film is of particular relevance. Hossein Bidgoli’s definition identifies a
myriad set of interconnections that are all vital to a product’s journey:
‘A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, technology,
­activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or
10 F. GRAY

service from supplier to customer; supply chain activities transform

­natural resources, raw materials, and components into a finished prod-
uct that can be delivered to the end customer’ (Bidgoli 2010, p. 191).
For John Mentzer, his focus concentrates on the primary agents (the
companies) as well as the significance of financial matters and market
knowledge (intelligence) so supply chains represent, for him, ‘all the
companies involved in all upstream and downstream flow of products,
services, finances and information from a source to a consumer’ (Mentzer
2001, p. 2).
The supply chain model, when applied to the Brighton School and the
early film trade, provides a structure for holistically analysing its compo-
nent parts. The upstream flow can embody all of the multiple and inter-
related supply chains that led to the creation of a film (the product).
Generally, these were encompassed by a very wide set of technologies,
products and services in relation to film production (e.g. film apparatus,
film stock, chemicals, creation/direction, actors, set and costume design).
Similarly, the downstream flow can be interpreted as tracking the linear
movement of a film (the product) to an audience through the many activi-
ties of a retailer (print duplication, marketing and transportation) and an
exhibitor (film and lantern projectors, venues, marketing and performers).
These conjunctive flows upstream and downstream reveal a nexus of sup-
ply chains related directly and indirectly to the emerging film trade and its
tripartite phases of activity—production/manufacture, retailing and exhi-
bition. Consciousness of this model has informed this study’s understand-
ing of this new industry’s intricate nature.
This study is designed to connect texts (films) and their makers to a
range of histories and, by doing so, account for their production, their use
and their production of meaning. All of this work is shaped by a recogni-
tion of the importance of contextual, intertextual and intermedial rela-
tionships. Raymond Williams was a great advocate of the need to connect
texts to society in order to reveal their origins and their meanings. He said,
‘If we are looking for the relations between literature and society, we can-
not either separate out this one practice from a formed body of other
practices, nor when we have identified a particular practice can we give it
a uniform, static and ahistorical relation to some abstract social formation’
(Williams 1980, p. 45). Although his interest was related to the study of
literature, his relational and holistic perspective has influenced this study’s
approach. A similar yet more nuanced conceptualisation was offered by
André Gaudreault when he called for new histories of early film that would
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

take ‘into strict account, at least for the first years of this history, the
dependence of cinema on other mediums [sic] and cultural spheres’
(Gaudreault 2000, p. 14). He described this position as one where ‘the
historian must devote himself or herself to adopting a panoptic vision, to
privileging a panoramic point of view’ (Gaudreault 2000, p. 5). This pan-
opticism is also echoed by Frank Kessler’s use of the term dispositif (as a
specific arrangement or disposition) when examining ‘the complex inter-
action between texts, viewers, and viewing situation (including all aspects
of technology and institutional framings) in a given historical context’. He
posits this concept as ‘a heuristic tool to investigate the manifold ways in
which the various types of moving images […] were presented to audi-
ences’ (Kessler 2011, p. 139). This term’s value to this study is obvious
given the way in which it further amplifies the need to uncover the c­ omplex
interrelationships between a film and the contexts of technology, produc-
tion, exhibition, institutions, discourses, society and technology, both syn-
chronically (at a moment in time) and diachronically (through time). It is
through such an inclusive historical practice devoted to the interconnected
and the interrelated that an individual film is seen to possess ‘a complex of
extending active relationships’, which places it not in a fixed relationship
to history but in a more fluid, open and dialectical relationship with other
texts, contexts, practices and discourses (Williams 1980, p. 48). It is this
understanding of the need to create a wide-angled ‘heuristic tool’ that
engages with a plurality of histories that has shaped this study of early
British film history.

The Research Context

It is relevant to describe the production of a history of this kind as a form
of archaeology given the absence of so much of the relevant documenta-
tion integral to the study of early British film. The primary evidence
employed by this study is dominated by the relevant surviving films from
1894 to 1903 that are held by film archives. Most of these are found
within the British Film Institute’s National Archive (BFINA) in London.
The close study of this material through the examination of the film prints
and key frames is invaluable to work of this kind. However, one of the
great problems which confronts the study of film’s early years is the fact
that the majority of films produced in this period are ‘lost’ and, unfortu-
nately, most of them will never ever be found.
12 F. GRAY

The scale of this loss is staggering. Of all the UK-made silent fiction
films produced from 1895 to 1928, the BFINA estimated in 1994 that it
held approximately 17% of this material.2 Figures for non-fiction produc-
tion have not been produced but this loss will be on either a similar or
even greater scale because of the long tradition within film archiving to
privilege the preservation of fiction film. The survival rate of Smith’s films
conforms to this national figure, whereas the survival rate for Williamson’s
is much lower. Of Smith’s estimated total output of 126 fiction and non-­
fiction films from 1897 to 1903, approximately 21 (16.6%) have survived.
Of Williamson’s total estimated output of 196 fiction and non-fiction
films from 1898 to 1903, approximately 24 (12.2%) have survived. Based
on these estimations, one is confronted by the grim realisation that 83.4%
of Smith’s films and 87.8% of Williamson’s films have not been ‘archived’
and therefore probably no longer exist.3
Two key factors can be used to account for the loss of this material. The
first is the recognition that public film archives in Europe and North
America did not come into existence until the 1930s, almost forty years
after the birth of the medium. These archives emerged at the start of
sound film, the very moment when distributors and exhibitors were
destroying silent films because of the perceived loss of their commercial
value. The British Film Library at the BFI, BFINA’s precursor, was
founded in 1935 to create a national collection of moving images. It, like
the other first archives, could only collect what had survived from the
silent period. The second factor is the lack of legal protection for the pub-
lic collection and preservation of film. Statutory deposit has only ever
applied to the nation’s printed publications. The film archivist has, there-
fore, only been able to attempt to build a representative collection of the
nation’s film heritage and this work has been determined by the existence
and availability of either a film negative or print and by acquisition criteria
which are historically, culturally and subjectively informed. In these cir-
cumstances, it has been very easy for many films to never be acquired for
the nation.
To slightly ameliorate the loss of the films are the survival of a number
of film catalogues issued by Williamson, the Warwick Trading Company
and the Charles Urban Trading Company, the latter two being London-­
based production and retailing companies. This primary evidence is
important because it records films produced in these years and provides
titles, lengths, descriptions and, in some cases, reproductions of frame
illustrations. This invaluable documentation enables us to understand the
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

nature of the ‘missing’ films, assemble a portrait of each film company,

assess its film production within a given period and recognise the role that
these catalogues played in advertising these films to contemporary
exhibitors.
The other primary sources include apparatus, business records, family
records, theatre programmes, lantern slides and contemporary newspapers
and periodicals found in a range of collections and online resources. The
most pertinent business record is Smith’s Cash Book. A little volume hand-
written by Smith in the collection of the BFI, it records his expenditure
and income from his film business from the creation of his ‘film factory’ at
Hove in 1897.4 No personal papers have survived which are related to
Smith but some material related to Williamson is found at the BFI (the
Tom Williamson Collection) and at Hove Museum & Art Gallery (family
photographs and a scrapbook). The Charles Urban papers held at the
National Science & Media Museum at Bradford provide a great deal of
context for Smith’s activities with Urban especially the rise of Kinemacolor.
The Barnes Collection at Hove Museum & Art Gallery (Royal Pavilion &
Museums) is devoted to film-making in the south-east in the early period.
It includes film cameras manufactured by Alfred Darling and the
Williamson Company, theatre programmes and catalogues related to
Charles Urban, the Warwick Trading Company and Kinemacolor,
Williamson catalogues and rare publications related to the first years of
film. The Museum has also acquired substantial material related to Alfred
Darling including workbooks and ledgers from 1896 to 1907 and the
Darling ‘Special Effects’ Camera of 1899/1900 (likely to be the model of
film camera used by Smith on two of his edited films: Grandma’s Reading
Glass and As Seen Through the Telescope). In order to understand the rise of
film and both the local and the national contexts, newspapers and periodi-
cals such as the Optical Magic Lantern Journal and Photographic Enlarger
and the English Mechanic have provided essential resources for this study.
This material ranges from actual copies and microfilms held by libraries
and record offices to the British Library’s online British Newspaper Archive.
This remarkable resource has made it possible to begin to build a national
perspective on the exhibition of films made by the Brighton School.
Similarly, the Lucerna magic lantern online resource has unlocked this
medium’s history by documenting and providing digital versions for an
extensive range of lantern slide sets.5
The substantial lack of primary sources related to the study of early
British film is both disappointing and frustrating. The absence of so many
14 F. GRAY

of the films, personal papers and business records means that there will
ever only be a partial understanding of this history. However, and in spite
of these limitations, the challenge for the early film historian is to work
with the available evidence—‘the remains’—in order to construct a mean-
ingful context for the critical and historical examination of these film-­
makers and their films. This ‘archaeological’ approach also justifies the
need to use the available material to attempt to describe and analyse some
of the ‘lost’ films.
My own understanding of early film has also been enriched by creating
and directing Screen Archive South East, years of dialogue with close col-
leagues and fellow archivists and historians, the curation of early film exhi-
bitions, contributions to Domitor conferences (the international society
dedicated to the study of early cinema) and attendance at the annual Le
Giornate del Cinema Muto at Pordenone. This study was also shaped by
many passionate conversations with the historians and collectors, John and
William Barnes.

Notes
1. These revolutions are broadly defined as: the First Industrial Revolution
(late eighteenth century to mid-nineteenth century—the rise of the first
industrialised economies led by advances in the iron and textile industries
and the invention of the steam engine); the Second Industrial Revolution
(from mid-late nineteenth century—an era characterised by electricity, oil,
steel, the combustion engine, mass production, new communications and
entertainment technologies); the Third Industrial Revolution (from the
mid-twentieth century onwards—the rise of electronic and digital technolo-
gies and communications such as the internet). There is also the emerging
Fourth Industrial Revolution which is described as the era of automation,
artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. See Rifkin (2011) for an
analysis of this history of revolutions.
2. The figure of 17% is found within the table, ‘How Much Has Been Saved?’
in Houston, p. 172.
3. These estimated figures are derived from: the filmographies produced in
Barnes, vols. 1–5 (1996–1998), the copies of the Williamson catalogues of
1899, 1902 and 1903 in the collection of the Screen Archive South East and
the list of ‘survivors’ from the BFI National Archive.
4. The first double-page spread of Smith’s handwritten Cash Book, dated from
1 January 1897, is headed by two words: ‘Film Factory’ (G. A. Smith, Cash
Book; in the collection of the BFI, London).
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

5. Lucerna—the Magic Lantern Web Resource is a collaboration between

researchers from the Universities of Brighton (Screen Archive South East),
Exeter, Trier and Utrecht, the Kent Museum of the Moving Image and the
Magic Lantern Society.

Resources and Bibliography

Books and Articles
Bidgoli, Hossein, ed. 2010. The Handbook of Technology Management: Supply
Chain Management, Marketing and Advertising, and Global Management.
Vol. 2. Hoboken: John Wiley.
Erredge, John. 1862. History of Brighthelmston, or, Brighton as I View It and Others
Knew It with a Chronological Table of Events. Brighton: E. Lewis.
Gaudreault, André. 2000. The Diversity of Cinematographic Connections in the
Intermedial Context of the Turn of the 20th Century. In Visual Delights: Essays
on the Popular and Projected Image, ed. Simon Popple and Vanessa Toulmin,
8–15. Trowbridge: Flicks Books.
Kessler, Frank. 2011. Programming and Performing Early Cinema Today:
Strategies and Dispositifs. In In Early Cinema Today: the Art of Programming
and Live Performance, ed. Martin Loiperdinger. New Barnet: Kintop,
John Libbey.
Levin, Miriam. 2010. Dynamic Triad: City, Exposition, and Museum in Industrial
Society. In Urban Modernity: Cultural Innovation in the Second Industrial
Revolution, ed. Miriam Levin, Sophie Forgan, Martina Hessler, Robert
H. Kargon, and Morris Low. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Mann, Michael. 2012. The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 2: A Rise of Classes and
Nation States, 1760–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. First ed.
1992.
Mentzer, John, ed. 2001. Supply Change Management. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Rifkin, Jeremy. 2011. The Third Industrial Revolution; How Lateral Power Is
Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Williams, Raymond. 1980. Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory.
In Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays. London: Verso.
Fig. 2.1 Grandma’s
Reading Glass,
G.A. Smith, 1900.
Courtesy of BFI
National Archive
 CHAPTER 2

Investigating the Brighton School

The term ‘dominant’ history signifies the existence of an established

understanding of either an event or text. It is the product of a process
whereby an historical perspective becomes part of ‘dominant’ history
through its citation and reiteration across a range of histories and refer-
ence works over a period of time. This production of ‘history’ demon-
strates effectively how a community of historians, publishers and
institutions can participate in the creation of a dominant version of the
past. Raymond Williams referred to this particular understanding of the
production of history as the ‘selective tradition’. He wrote, ‘there is a
process which I call the selective tradition: that which, within the terms of
an effective dominant culture, is always passed off as “the tradition”, “the
significant past”. But always the selectivity is the point; the way in which
from a whole possible area of past and present, certain meanings and prac-
tices are chosen for emphasis, certain other meanings and practices are
neglected and excluded’ (Williams 1980, p. 39).
This chapter investigates the historiographical treatment of Smith and
Williamson from the early twentieth century and, by doing so, draws
attention to the manner in which not one but a number of ‘selective tradi-
tions’ within film history have produced a range of interpretations of
European and American films, British film and the particular history of
film-making in Brighton and Hove. Given the accumulated understanding
of these histories from the perspective of the early twenty-first century, it
is important to recognise that many of the first histories of film paid either

© The Author(s) 2019 19

F. Gray, The Brighton School and the Birth of British Film,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17505-4_2
20 F. GRAY

little or no attention to both Smith and Williamson and British film his-
tory. This occurred because the history was seen as one which was led
essentially across its first decade by French and American film-makers. In
the 1930s and 1940s, another perspective was launched which we can
interpret as a response and a corrective to this lack of interest in the British
dimension. This ‘new’ British view of early cinema promoted William
Friese-Greene as the world’s most significant film pioneer. The 1940s also
saw the historical significance of Smith and Williamson being championed
for the very first time. In an article published in Paris in 1945, the French
film historian Georges Sadoul introduced their contributions to the begin-
nings of film editing and gave the Hove film-makers their collective name,
the Brighton School. Sadoul’s achievement, as this chapter examines, was
to create a place for Smith and Williamson within a revised history of early
film. His work has been augmented by the work of Rachael Low and John
Barnes and their respective investigations into the production and exhibi-
tion of early British film. Martin Sopocy has also made an important con-
tribution because of his monograph on Williamson. This chapter identifies
the relevance of these histories to this study and concludes by considering
the attempt to invalidate Sadoul’s history by asserting that Arthur
Melbourne-Cooper was the author of Smith’s key films.

Smith and Williamson Before 1945

The first histories of film relied on generalisations, assertions and a com-
plete disregard for the use of primary and secondary sources. They were
essentialist in character as they defined moving pictures in terms of great
inventors, great film-makers and great films and cast this activity within its
own exclusive field of cultural and commercial practice, detached from all
other histories. It was as if ‘movie history’ needed to only reflect the popu-
lar nature of the medium itself and could disregard any form of structured
historical analysis. In some cases, this undisciplined approach to the study
of this history paid attention to Williamson’s role as a film producer and
Smith’s involvement with Kinemacolor, the two colour additive process he
developed from 1903 to 1909. These early representations are significant
because they have influenced popular perceptions of Smith and Williamson
in relation to their involvement with early British cinema.
Frederick Talbot’s Moving Pictures: How they are Made and Worked of
1912 represents an early attempt to construct a history of the cinema
from a British perspective. It established the now-familiar master narrative
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
dame tú la fuerça y yo porne la
voluntad. Las cosas de onrra que
pones delante conozcolas con la
razon y niegolas con ella misma.
Digo que las conozco y aprueuo
si las ha de vsar onbre libre de mi
pensamiento, y digo que las niego
para comigo pues pienso avnque
busque graue pena que escogí
onrrada muerte. El trabaio que
por mi as recebido y el deseo que
te he visto me obligauan á ofrecer
por tí la vida todas las vezes que
fuere menester, mas pues lo
menos della me queda de beuir
seate satisfacion lo que quisiera y
no lo que puedo. Mucho te ruego
pues esta será la final buena obra
que tú me podras hazer y yo
recebir que quieras leuar á
Laureola en vna carta mia nueuas
con que se alegre, porque della
sepa como me despido de la vida
y de mas dalle enoio, la qual en
esfuerço que la leuarás quiero
començar en tu presencia y las
razones della sean estas.

CARTA DE LERIANO Á
LAUREOLA
Pues el galardon de mis afanes
auie de ser mi sepoltura ya soy a
tiempo de recebirlo. Morir no
creas que me desplaze, que
aquel es de poco iuyzio que
aborrece lo que da libertad. ¿Mas
que haré que acabará comigo el
esperança de verte graue cosa
para sentir? Dirás que cómo tan
presto en vn año ha o poco mas
que ha que soy tuyo desfallescio
mi sofrimiento; no te deues
marauillar que tu poca esperança
y mi mucha pasion podian bastar
para más de quitar la fuerça al
sofrir, no pudiera pensar que á tal
cosa dieras lugar si tus obras no
me lo certificaran.
Siempre crey que forçara tu
condicion piadosa á tu voluntad
porfiada, como quiera que en esto
si mi vida recibe el daño mi dicha
tiene la culpa, espantado estoy
cómo de tí misma no te dueles.
Dite la libertad, ofrecite el
coraçon, no quise ser nada mio
por serlo del todo tuyo, pues,
¿cómo te querrá seruir ni tener
amor quien sopiere que tus
propias cosas destruyes? Por
cierto tú eres tu enemiga. Si no
me querias remediar porque me
saluara yo, deuieraslo hazer
porque no te condenaras tú.
Porque en mi perdicion ouiese
algund bien deseo que te pese
della, mas si el pesar te avie de
dar pena no lo quiero, que pues
nunca biuiendo te hize seruicio no
seria iusto que moriendo te
causase enoio. Los que ponen los
oios en el sol quanto mas lo miran
mas se ciegan, y assi quanto yo
más contenplo tu hermosura mas
ciego tengo el sentido. Esto digo
porque de los desconciertos
escritos no te marauilles: verdad
es que á tal tienpo escusado era
tal descargo, porque segund
quedo mas estó en disposicion de
acabar la vida que de desculpar
las razones.
Pero quisiera que lo que tú auias
de ver fuera ordenado, porque no
ocuparas tu saber en cosa tan
fuera de tu condicion. Si
consientes que muera porque se
publique que podiste matar, mal
te aconseiaste, que sin
esperiencia mia lo certificava la
hermosura tuya; si lo tienes por
bien porque no era merecedor de
tus mercedes, pensaua alcançar
por fé lo que por desmerecer
perdiese, y, con este
pensamiento, osé tomar tal
cuydado. Si por ventura te plaze
por parecerte que no se podria
remediar sin tu ofensa mi cuyta,
nunca pense pedirte merced que
te causase culpa. ¿Cómo auia de
aprouecharme el bien que á ti te
viniese mal? Solamente pedí tu
respuesta por primero y
postrimero galardon. Dexadas
mas largas te suplico, pues
acabas la vida que onrres la
muerte, porque si en lugar donde
van las almas desesperadas ay
algun bien, no pediré otro si no
sentido para sentir que onrraste
mis huesos por gozar aquel poco
espacio de gloria tan grande.

EL AUCTOR
Acabada la habla y carta de
Leriano, satisfaziendo los oios por
las palabras con muchas
lagrimas, sin poderle hablar
despedime dél, auiendo aquella,
segund le vi, por la postrimera vez
que lo esperaua ver; y puesto en
el camino puse su sobrescrito á
su carta porque Laureola en
seguridad de aquel la quisiese
recebir. Y llegado donde estaua,
acordé de gela dar, la qual
creiendo que era de otra calidad
recebio, y començo y acabó leer;
y como en todo aquel tiempo que
la leya nunca partiese de su
rostro mi vista, vi que quando
acabó de leerla quedó tan
enmudecida y turbada como si
gran mal touiera, y como su
turbacion de mirar la mia no le
escusase, por asegurarme hizo
me preguntas y hablas fuera de
todo proposito, y para librarse de
la conpañia que en semeiantes
tienpos es peligrosa, porque las
mudanças públicas no
descubriessen los pensamientos,
retraxose. Y assí estuuo aquella
noche sin hablarme nada en el
propósito, y otro dia de mañana
mandome llamar y despues que
me dixo quantas razones
bastauan para descargarse del
consentimiento que daua en la
pena de Leriano, dixome que le
tenia escrito pareciéndole
inumanidad perder por tan poco
precio un onbre tal; y porque con
el plazer de lo que le oya estaua
desatinado en lo que hablaua, no
escriuo la dulceza y onestad que
ouo en su razonamiento. Quien
quiera que la oyera pudiera
conocer que aquel estudio auie
vsado poco: ya de enpachada
estaua encendida, ya de turbada
se tornaua amarilla. Tenia tal
alteracion y tan sin aliento la
habla como si esperara sentencia
de muerte; en tal manera le
tenblaua la boz que no podía
forçar con la discrecion al miedo.
Mi respuesta fué breve porque el
tienpo para alargarme no me
daua lugar, y despues de besalle
las manos recebi su carta, las
razones de la qual eran tales.

CARTA DE LAUREOLA Á
LERIANO
La muerte que esperauas tú de
penado merecia yo por culpada si
en esto que hago pecase mi
voluntad, lo que cierto no es assí,
que más te escriuo por redemir tu
vida que por satisfazer tu deseo.
Mas, triste de mi, que este
descargo solamente aprouecha
para conplir comigo, porque si
deste pecado fuese acusada no
tengo otro testigo para saluarme
sino mi intencion, y por ser parte
tan principal no se tomaria en
cuenta su dicho, y con este
miedo, la mano en el papel, puse
el coraçon en el cielo, haziendo
iuez de mi fin aquel á quien la
verdad de las cosas es
manifiesta.
Todas las vezes que dudé en
responderte fue porque sin mi
condenacion no podias tú ser
asuelto. Como agora parece que
puesto que tú solo y el levador de
mi carta sepays que escreui, qué
sé yo los iuycios que dareys
sobre mi; y digo que sean sanos
sola mi sospecha me amanzilla.
Ruegote mucho quando con mi
respuesta en medio de tus
plazeres estés mas vfano, que te
acuerdes de la fama de quien los
causó, y auiso te desto, porque
semeiantes fauores desean
publicarse teniendo mas
acatamiento á la vitoria dellos que
á la fama de quien los da. Quanto
meior me estouiera ser afeada
por cruel que amanzillada por
piadosa, tú lo conosces, y por
remediarte vsé lo contrario. Ya tú
tienes lo que deseauas y yo lo
que temia. Por Dios te pido que
enbueluas mi carta en tu fe,
porque si es tan cierta como
confiesas no se te pierda ni de
nadie pueda ser vista, que quien
viese lo que te escriuo pensaria
que te amo, y creeria que mis
razones antes eran dichas por
disimulacion de la verdad que por
la verdad. Lo qual es al reues,
que por cierto mas las digo, como
ya he dicho, con intencion
piadosa que con voluntad
enamorada. Por hazerte creer
esto querria estenderme y por no
ponerte otra sospecha acabo, y
para que mis obras recibiesen
galardon iusto auia de hazer la
vida otro tanto.

EL AUCTOR
Recibida la carta de Laureola
acordé de partirme para Leriano,
el qual camino quise hazer
acompañado, por leuar comigo
quien á él y á mí ayudase en la
gloria de mi enbaxada, y por
animarlos para adelante llamé los
mayores enemigos de nuestro
negocio que eran
Contentamiento, y Esperança, y
Descanso, y Plazer, y Alegría, y
Holgança. Y porque si las
guardas de la prision de Leriano
quisiesen por leuar conpañía
defenderme la entrada, pense de
yr en orden de guerra, y con tal
pensamiento, hecha vna batalla
de toda mi conpañía, seguí mi
camino, y allegado á vn alto
donde se parecia la prision,
viendo los guardadores della mi
seña que era verde y colorada, en
lugar de defenderse pusieronse
en huyda tan grande que quien
mas huya mas cerca pensaua
que yua del peligro. Y como
Leriano vido sobre á ora tal
rebato, no sabiendo qué cosa
fuese, pusose á vna ventana de la
torre, hablando verdad, mas con
flaqueza de espíritu que con
esperança de socorro. Y como
me vio venir en batalla de tan
hermosa gente, conocio lo que
era, y lo vno de la poca fuerça y lo
otro de supito, bien perdido el
sentido, cayó en el suelo de
dentro de la casa. Pues yo que no
leuaua espacio, como llegué al
escalera por donde solia sobir
eché á descanso delante, el qual
dió estraña claridad á su tinibra, y
subido á donde estaua el ya
bienauenturado, quando le ví en
manera mortal pense que yua á
buen tienpo para llorarlo y tarde
para darle remedio, pero socorrio
luego Esperança que andaua allí
la mas diligente y echandole vn
poco de agua en el rostro tornó
en su acuerdo, y por más
esforçarle dile la carta de
Laureola, y entre tanto que la leya
todos los que leuaua comigo
procurauan su salud. Alegria le
alegraua el coraçon, Descanso le
consolaua el alma, Esperança le
bolvia el sentido, Contentamiento
le aclaraua la vista, Holgança le
restituya la fuerça, Plazer le
abiuaua el entendimiento, y en tal
manera lo trataron que quando lo
que Laureola le escrebió acabó
de leer estaua tan sano como si
ninguna pasion vuiera tenido. Y
como vido que mi diligencia le dio
libertad echabame muchas vezes
los brazos encima, ofreciendome
á él y á todo lo suyo, y pareciale
poco precio segund lo que
merecia mi seruicio. De tal
manera eran sus ofrecimientos
que no sabía responderle como
yo deuia y quien él era. Pues
despues que entre él y mí
grandes cosas pasaron, acordó
de yrse á la corte, y antes que
fuesse estuuo algunos dias en
vna villa suya por rehazerse de
fuerças y atauios para su partida,
y como se vido en disposicion de
poderse partir pusolo en obra, y
sabido en la corte como yua,
todos los grandes señores y
mancebos cortesanos salieron á
recebirle. Mas como aquellas
cerimonias vieias touiesse
sabidas, mas vfana le daua la
gloria secreta que la onrra
pública, y así fue acompañado
hasta palacio. Quando besó las
manos á Laureola pasaron cosas
mucho de notar, en especial para
mí que sabia lo que entre ellos
estaua: al vno le sobraua
turbacion, al otro le faltaua color;
ni él sabie qué dezir, ni ella qué
responder, que tanta fuerça tienen
las pasiones enamoradas que
sienpre traen el seso y discrecion
debaxo de su vandera; lo que allí
vi por clara esperiencia.
Y puesto que de las mudanças
dellos ninguno touiese noticia por
la poca sospecha que de su
pendencia auia, Persio, hijo del
señor de Gavia miró en ellas,
trayendo el mismo pensamiento
que Leriano traya; y como las
sospechas celosas escudriñan las
cosas secretas, tanto miró de allí
adelante las hablas y señales dél,
que dió crédito á lo que
sospechaua: y no solamente dió
fé á lo que veya, que no era nada,
mas á lo que ymaginaua él que
era todo. Y con este maluado
pensamiento, sin más
deliberacion ni conseio, apartó al
rey en vn secreto lugar y dixole
afirmadamente que Laureola y
Leriano se amauan y que se
veyan todas las noches despues
que él dormia, y que gelo hazia
saber por lo que deuie á la onrra y
á su seruicio. Turbado el rey de
cosa tal, estouo dubdoso y
pensatiuo sin luego determinarse
á responder, y despues que
mucho dormio sobre ello, tovolo
por verdad, creyendo segund la
virtud y auctoridad de Persio que
no le diria otra cosa. Pero con
todo esso primero que deliberase
quiso acordar lo que deuie hazer,
y puesta Laureola en vna carcel
mandó llamar á Persio y dixole
que acusase de traydor á Leriano,
segun sus leyes, de cuyo
mandamiento fue mucho
afrontado. Mas como la calidad
del negocio le forçaua á otorgarlo,
respondió al rey que aceutaua su
mando y que daua gracias á Dios
que le ofrecia caso para que
fuesen sus manos testimonio de
su bondad; y como semeiantes
autos se acustumbran en
Macedonia hazer por carteles y
no en presencia del rey, enbió en
vno Persio á Leriano las razones
siguientes:

CARTEL DE PERSIO PARA

LERIANO
Pues procede de las virtuosas
obras la loable fama, iusto es que
la maldad se castigue porque la
virtud se sostenga, y con tanta
diligencia deue ser la bondad
anparada que los enemigos della
si por voluntad no la obraren, por
miedo la vsen. Digo esto, Leriano,
porque la pena que recebirás de
la culpa que cometiste sera
castigo para que tú pagues y
otros teman, que si á tales cosas
se diese lugar no sería menos
fauorecida la desvirtud en los
malos, que la nobleza en los
buenos.
Por cierto mal te as aprovechado
de la limpieza que eredaste; tus
mayores te mostraron hazer
bondad y tú aprendiste obrar
trayzion; sus huessos se
leuantarian contra tí si supiesen
como ensuziaste por tal error sus
nobles obras. Pero venido eres á
tienpo que recibieras por lo
hecho, fin en la vida y manzilla en
la fama. Malauenturados aquellos
como tú que no saben escoger
muerte onesta; sin mirar el
seruicio de tu rey y la obligacion
de tu sangre touiste osada
desuerguença para enamorarte
de Laureola, con la qual en su
camara, despues de acostado el
rey, diuersas vezes as hablado,
escureciendo por seguir tu
condicion tu claro linage, de cuya
razon te rebto por traydor, y
sobrello te entiendo matar ó echar
del canpo; ó lo que digo hazer
confesar por tu boca, donde
quanto el mundo durare sere en
exenplo de lealtad; y atreuome á
tanto confiando en tu falsía y mi
verdad. Las armas escoge de la
manera que querras y el canpo.
Yo de parte del rey lo hago
seguro.

RESPUESTA DE LERIANO
Persio, mayor seria mi fortuna
que tu malicia si la culpa que me
cargas con maldad no te diese la
pena que mereces por iusticia. Si
fueras tan discreto como malo,
por quitarte de tal peligro antes
deuieras saber mi intencion que
sentenciar mis obras. Á lo que
agora conozco de tí, mas curauas
de parecer bueno que de serlo.
Teniendote por cierto amigo todas
mis cosas comunicaua contigo y
segund parece yo confiaua de tu
virtud y tú vsauas de tu condicion.
Como la bondad que mostrauas
concertó el amistad, assi la
falsedad que encobrías causó la
enemiga. ¡Ó enemigo de tí
mismo! que con razon lo puedo
dezir, pues por tu testimonio
dexarás la memoria con cargo y
acabarás la vida con mengua.
¿Por que pusiste la lengua en
Laureola que sola su bondad
basta a si toda la del mundo se
perdiese para tornarla á cobrar?
Pues tú afirmas mentira clara y yo
defiendo causa iusta, ella quedará
libre de culpa y tu onrra no de
verguença. No quiero responder á
tus desmesuras porque hallo por
mas onesto camino vencerte con
la persona que satisfazerte con
las palabras. Solamente quiero
venir a lo que haze al caso, pues
allí está la fuerça de nuestro
debate. Acusasme de traydor y
afirmas que entré muchas vezes
en su camara de Laureola
despues del rey retraydo. Á lo vno
y á lo otro te digo que mientes,
como quiera que no niego que
con voluntad enamorada la miré.
Pero si fuerça de amor ordenó el
pensamiento, lealtad virtuosa
causó la lynpieza dél; assi que
por ser della fauorecido y no por
ál lo pensé. Y para mas afearte te
defendere no solo que no entré
en su camara, mas que palabras
de amores iamás le hablé, pues
quando la intencion no peca saluo
está el que se iuzga, y porque la
determinacion desto ha de ser
con la muerte del vno y no con las
lenguas dentramos, quede para el
dia del hecho la sentencia, la qual
fio en Dios se dara por mí, porque
tú reutas con malicia y yo
defiendo con razon y la verdad
determina con iusticia. Las armas
que á mí son de señalar sean a la
bryda segund nuestra costumbre,
nosotros armados de todas
pieças, los cauallos con cubiertas
y cuello y testera, lanças yguales
y sendas espadas sin ninguna
otra arma de las vsadas, con las
quales defendiendo lo dicho, ó
(te) haré desdezir ó echaré del
campo sobrello.

EL AUCTOR
Como la mala fortuna enbidiosa
de los bienes de Leriano vsase
con él de su natural condicion,
diole tal reues quando le vido
mayor en prosperidad. Sus
desdichas causauan pasion á
quien las vio y conbidan á pena á
quien las oye. Pues desando su
cuyta para hablar en su reuto,
despues que respondio al cartel
de Persio como es escrito,
sabiendo el rey que estauan
concertados en la batalla,
aseguró el canpo, y señalando el
lugar donde hiziesen, y
ordenadas todas las cosas que en
tal auto se requerian segund las
ordenanças de Macedonia,
puesto el rey en vn cadahalso,
vinieron los caualleros cada vno
acompañado y fauorecido como
merecía y guardadas en ygualdad
las onrras dentrambos entraron
en el canpo: y como los fieles los
dexaron solos, fueronse el vno
para el otro donde en la fuerça de
los golpes mostraron la virtud de
los animos, y quebradas las
lanças en los primeros encuentros
pusieron mano á las espadas, y
assi se conbatian que quien
quiera ouiera enbidia de lo que
obrauan y compasion de lo que
padecian.
Finalmente, por no detenerme en
esto que parece cuento de
ystorias vieias, Leriano le cortó á
Persio la mano derecha, y como
la meior parte de su persona le
viese perdida dixole: Persio,
porque no pague tu vida por la
falsedad de tu lengua deues te
desdezir. El qual respondio: haz lo
que as de hazer, que aunque me
falta el braço para defender no
me fallece coraçon para morir. Y
oyendo Leriano tal respuesta
diole tanta priesa que lo puso en
la postrimera necesidad; y como
ciertos caualleros sus parientes le
viesen en estrecho de muerte
suplicaron al rey mandase echar
el baston, que ellos le fiauan para
que dél hiziese iusticia si
claramente se hallase culpado; lo
qual el rey assi les otorgó. Y
como fuesen despartidos, Leriano
de tan grande agrauio con mucha
razon se sentio, no podiendo
pensar porqué el rey tal cosa
mandase. Pues como fueron
despartidos, sacaronlos del canpo
yguales en cerimonia avnque
desyguales en fama, y assi los
leuaron á sus posadas donde
estuvieron aquella noche; y otro
dia de mañana avido Leriano su
conseio, acordó de yr á palacio á
suplicar y requerir al rey en
presencia de toda su corte, le
mandase restituir en su onrra
haziendo iusticia de Persio. El
qual como era malino de
condicion y agudo de iuyzio, en
tanto que Leriano lo que es
contado acordaua, hizo llamar
tres onbres muy conformes de
sus costumbres que tenia por
muy suyos, y iuramentandolos
que le guardasen secreto dió á
cada uno infinito dinero porque
dixesen y iurasen al rey que
vieron hablar á Leriano con
Laureola en lugares sospechosos
y en tienpos desonestos, los
quales se profirieron á afirmarlo y
iurarlo hasta perder la vida
sobrello. No quiero dezir lo que
Laureola en todo esto sentia
porque la pasion no turbe el
sentido para acabar lo
començado, porque no tengo
agora menos nueuo su dolor que
quando estaua presente. Pues
tornando á Leriano que mas de su
prision della se dolia que de la
Vitoria dél se gloriaua, como supo
que el rey era leuantado fuese á
palacio y presentes los caualleros
de su corte hizole una habla en
esta manera.
 LERIANO AL REY
Por cierto, señor, con mayor
voluntad sufriera el castigo de tu
iusticia que la verguença de tu
presencia, si ayer no leuara lo
meior de la batalla, donde si tú lo
ouieras por bien, de la falsa
acusacion de Persio quedara del
todo libre: que puesto que á vista
de todos yo le diera el galardon
que merecia, gran ventaia va de
hizieralo á hizolo. La razon por
que despartir nos mandaste no la
puedo pensar, en especial
tocando á mi mismo el debate,
que aunque de Laureola
deseases vengança, como
generoso no te faltaria piedad de
padre, comoquiera que en este
caso, bien creo quedaste
satisfecho de tu descargo. Si lo
heziste por conpasion que auias
de Persio, tan iusto fuera que la
vuieras de mi onrra como de su
vida, siendo tu natural. Si por
ventura lo consentiste por verte
aquexado de la suplicacion de
sus parientes, quando les
otorgaste la merced deuieras
acordarte de los seruicios que los
mios te hizieron, pues sabes con
quanta costança de coraçon,
quantos dellos en muchas
batallas y combates perdieron por
tu seruicio las vidas. Nunca
hueste iuntaste que la tercia parte
dellos no fuese. Suplicote que por
iuyzio me satisfagas la onrra que
por mis manos me quitaste: cata
que guardando las leyes se
conseruan los naturales. No
consientas que biua onbre que
tan mal guarda las preeminencias
de sus pasados, porque no
corronpan su benino los que con
él participaren. Por cierto no
tengo otra culpa sino ser amigo
del culpado, y si por este indicio
merezco pena, damela avn que
mi inocencia della me asuelua,
pues conserué su amistad
creyendole bueno y no iuzgandole
malo. Si le das la vida por seruirte
del, digote que te sera el mas leal
cizañador que puedas hallar en el
mundo. Requierote contigo
mismo, pues eres obligado á ser
ygual en derecho, que en esto
determines con la prudencia que
tienes y sentencies con la iusticia
que vsas. Señor, las cosas de
onrra deuen ser claras, y si á este
perdonas por ruegos, ó por ser
principal en tu reyno, ó por lo que
te plazera, no quedará en los
iuyzios de las gentes por
desculpado del todo; que si vnos
creyeren la verdad por razon,
otros la turbarán con malicia: y
digote que en tu reyno lo cierto se
sepa. Nunca la fama leua lexos lo
cierto; como sonará en los otros
lo que es pasado, si queda sin
castigo publico; por Dios, señor,
dexa mi onrra sin disputa, y de mi
vida y lo mio ordena lo que
quisieres.

EL AUCTOR
Atento estuuo el rey á todo lo que
Leriano quiso dezir, y acabada su
habla respondiole que el auria su
conseio sobre lo que deuiese
hazer, que en cosa tal con
deliberacion se auie de dar la
sentencia. Verdad es que la
respuesta del rey no fue tan dulce
como deuiera, lo qual fue porque
si á Laureola daua por libre
segund lo que vido, él no lo
estaua de enoio; porque Leriano
penso de seruilla auiendo por
culpado su pensamiento avnque
no lo fuese su entencion: y asi por
esto como por quitar el escandalo
que andaua entre su parentela y
la de Persio mandóle yr á vna villa
suya que estaua dos leguas de la
corte, llamada Susa, entre tanto
que acordaua en el caso. Lo que
luego hizo con alegre coraçon
teniendo ya á Laureola por
desculpada, cosa que él tanto
deseaua.
Pues como del rey fue despedido,
Persio que siempre se trabaiaua
en ofender su onrra por condicion
y en defenderla por malicia, llamó
los coniurados antes que