British Newsreels, 1911-1930: Culture and Society on Film

British Newsreels, 1911-1930 is a collection of over 6,000 digitized newsreels in the Topical Budget series produced by the Topical Film Company in Great Britain between 1911 and 1930. The newsreels were shown in cinemas across Britain and covered both British and international news. Each contained between 4 and 7 news stories, typically one to two minutes in length each. New newsreels were issued twice a week. The films are silent with intertitles (words that appear on screen). Each film includes a transcript, which both includes the text from the intertitles and a description of the action on screen. 

Topical Film Company was initially an independent company. It was purchased in 1917 by the U.K. War Office Cinematograph Committee and used as a propaganda tool during World War I. After the war, it was purchased by newspaper owner Edward Hulton in 1919, who owned it until its closure in 1931. 

The films have been digitized from reels held at the British Film Institute (BFI) and Imperial War Museums (IWM).