The Anima lodge
Too many topics and too little time. There are so many subjects I have tucked away for research at some time, but many of them I will never get round to tackling. So the best thing to do is to offer them up in their raw state here on The Bioscope, in the hope that they may interest someone else sufficiently to take up challenge.
A case in point is the Anima lodge. I’m unlikely ever to get to the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, and indeed I would hardly know where to start, freemasonry being an entirely closed book to me. But the intriguing story nevertheless is that there was a British freemasonry lodge for those in the film business, and it was established in 1912. I have, from I know not where, a list of the subscribing members of the Lodge 1912-1920, and a fascinating document it is too.
These were the founder members (links are to the Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema and London Project websites):
- Edward Thomas Heron [publisher of the Kinematograph Weekly]
- J. Brooke Wilkinson [secretary of the Kinematograph Manufacturers' Association and later of the British Board of Film Censors]
- Edwin Houghton Rockett [inventor and general jack-of-all-trades]
- Frederick Arton [managing director]
- Francis William Baker [managing director of Butcher's Film Service]
- Will Day [film equipment supplier and later film historian]
- Matt Raymond [Lumière operator, exhibitor, and future master of the Anima lodge]
- W. Firth [not known]
- George Henry Smith [British representative for Vitagraph Company of America]
- James Charles Squier [can't remember, involved in production]
- Charles Urban [producer, particularly of Kinemacolor]
- A. Pearl Cross [executive]
- John Frank Brockliss [film distributor]
That’s a notable list of a few of the major figures in the British film business at that time. More joined in subsequent years - I’ll identify them where I can:
- 1913 - Edward Henry Montagu [executive]
- 1913 - Alexander Liddle
- 1913 - E.H. Bishop [managing director]
- 1913 - Walter Northam [executive with Provincial Cinematograph Theatres]
- 1914 - H.S. Chambers
- 1915 - Harold John Fisher
- 1915 - Paul Kimberley [executive]
- 1915 - Albert Simmons
- 1915 - George Henry Saffell
- 1916 - Reginald Charles Bromhead [executive with Gaumont company]
- 1916 - Sidney Thornton Smurthwaite
- 1917 - Thomas Arthur Welsh [producer]
- 1917 - John Pearson
- 1918 - John Charles Ernest Mason [cameraman]
- 1918 - Solomon Gabriel Newman
- 1919 - Robert Chetham
- 1920 - Alfred G. Challis
- 1920 - Edward Maxwell Heron
- 1920 - Samuel Woolf Smith
- 1920 - Ernest Edgar Blake [executive]
- 1920 - E.W. Fredman
- 1920 - Victor Sheridan
- 1920 - Frederick Holmes Cooper [cameraman]
- 1920 - George William Pearson [director]
- 1920 - Chas. J. Miller
- 1920 - Ernest Peall [executive]
- 1920 - Lionel Phillips [distributor]
Well, there’s a fascinating line-up of the famous (in their small world, in their day) and the unknown. Figures like Urban, Wilkinson, Welsh, Kimberley, Pearson, Raymond and Heron were leading figures in the early British film business; many of the others were minor figures then, and are undoubtedly obscure now. What did the Anima lodge do? What advantages might it have brought to those who joined? How did the grand and the less-than-grand figures rub together? What alternative history of British silent cinema might some ingenious researcher draw from this line-up? Sadly, I cannot even tell you when the Anima lodge closed - if it ever closed. Perhaps it lingers somewhere. Someone will know.
Anyone who can identify the roles of the names I haven’t been able to identify, please let me know.
December 19, 2007 at 12:59 am
An amazing list of names, Luke. When researching Will Day, I did manage to get to the Library and Museum of Freemasonry and very helpful they were too. I had citations to two documents which were listed in their catalogue:
Heron, Edward Thomas. The Twenty-First Anniversary Celebration of the Anima Lodge, No. 3634 : 1933 (London, 1933).
Curry, B. J., and B. M. Charman. The Anima Lodge, No. 3634 : 1912 - 1962 (London, 1962).
They copied these for me, and somewhere I have the copies, but can’t lay my hands on them now. There are lists of names, probably including some of those you list. When I find this material I’ll post again.
As Luke says, a fascinating research project for someone. In fact, maybe someone should make a database of the names of people involved in the early British film industry?
December 19, 2007 at 9:27 pm
So it lasted until 1962 at least. Maybe it does still linger somewhere. I think there may have been some sort of association with the Cinema Veterans Society (which still continues as Cinema and Television Veterans, though the original stipulation that members had to have been in the film industry since 1903 has altered just a little). That’s because I found the Anima list included with a Cinema Veterans menu from the early 1920s. Anyway, please do pass on any more information if you find it.
I agree that a database of names would be useful. The London Project database partly serves such a function, with the large number of names it has of directors, managers, shareholders and such like. But the full works… well, someone may do one day, though I’d rather see The Bioscope (the original journal, that is) or the Kinematograph Weekly digitised and word-searchable. Plans to make either happen have failed so far, but it’ll get done one day.
January 2, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Indeed Anima Lodge, Number 3634 in the register of the United Grand Lodge of England, still exists and is approaching its centenary, which is how I found your information (for which many thanks) as I am researching lodge history.
For information, we are no longer directly associated with the Industry, else we may have died out in the 1950’s & 60’s, but we supported the Cinematographic & Allied Trades Benevolent fund when I joined (in 1979) until very recently and funded a “room” at their supported rest home. We still “toast” the “Veterans of the Film Industry”, though we only have one left to respond to it.
Our origins are still shown in our Banner which depicts the lady holding the lamp which was the badge of one of the early film studios (sorry, I’ve forgotten which one, though I really ought to remember!). We still meet 4 times a year in St. James’s Street, London and hopefully will do so for many years to come.
Again, thank you for a wonderful and very useful insight into our early members!
Dr. Derek J. Oliver
Anima Lodge No. 3634
January 2, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Thank you so much for having got in touch. I’m delighted that the Anima lodge continues, albeit with a changed membership, and that my post was so timely. I ought to know whose trademark is the lady with a lamp, but it’s escaped me too. If I can help with any further information, do let me know.
Here’s to the Veterans of the Film Industry.
Luke