ACTORS ORPHANAGE SCHOOL AT SILVERLANDS, CHERTSEY IN 1939-1940, PRIOR TO THE EVACUATION OF PUPILS TO THE USA FOR THE DURATION OF THE WAR [Allocated Title]
Title:ACTORS ORPHANAGE SCHOOL AT SILVERLANDS, CHERTSEY IN 1939-1940, PRIOR TO THE EVACUATION OF PUPILS TO THE USA FOR THE DURATION OF THE WAR [Allocated Title]
Film Number:MGH 4234
Other titles:AMATEUR FILM BY ROY WILLIAMS AND OTHER PUPILS [Alternative Title]
Summary: Amateur scenes of outdoor relaxation and English summer sports in the grounds of the Actors Orphanage School at Silverlands, Chertsey, Surrey in the year preceding the evacuation (sponsored by Hollywood stars) in September 1940 of all fifty-four boy and girl boarders to the wartime safety of New York. End of 1940 summer term school dinner and boys practising extinguishing fire with stirrup pump provide wartime context. (The film was shot by pupils using a camera donated by Mary Pickford.)
Description: Teenage girls play tennis on court in grounds of Silverlands School, Chertsey, Surrey, site of the Actors' Orphanage School (whose president and patron was Noel Coward). "Local Livestock": newt in indoor tank; two boys in grey uniform (older is Leonard Mann) throw abandoned grey squirrel, which unusually had been domesticated, up into tree; puppies playing. "Events of the Week": boys do PT over wooden horse. Pupils as Girl Guides in grounds of the Georgian house Silverlands. Girls do Physical Training. Boys play cricket; slow motion of boy bowling. Boys and girls in bathing costumes playing. Wheelbarrow race. End of term dinner, ca 27 July 1940, served in dining hall by maids (immediately prior to closure of school and evacuation of fifty-four pupils on Empress of Australia to Columbus High School in New York, under the auspices of the Edwin Gould Foundation, for the remainder of the war). Pupils enjoy outing to Woking Swimming Pool. Pupils pose on steps of Silverlands for photographers from London Evening Standard (11 July 1940). Girls in bathing costumes play in grass. Boys, including Dan Rolyat (later Dan Taylor of CBS), practise putting out small fire with stirrup pump, as part of Air Raid Precautions against possibility of German bomb damage in mid-1940.
Alternative Title:AMATEUR FILM BY ROY WILLIAMS AND OTHER PUPILS [Alternative Title]
Colour:Colour
Digitised:Yes
Object_Number:MGH 4234
Sound:Sound
Access Conditions:IWM
Featured Period:
Production Date:1940
Production Country: GB
Production Details: Actors Orphanage School, Chertsey (Production sponsor)
Personalities, Units and Organisations:
Keywords:
Physical Characteristics: Colour format: Colour
Sound format: Sound
Soundtrack language: None
Title language: None
Subtitle language: English
Technical Details: Format: 16mm
Number of items/reels/tapes: 1
Footage: 181 ft; Running time: 7 mins 25 secs
