Manchester Street Scene (1901) | BFI Archive 

I was born in 1951 and grew up near Manchester and it's a strange thought for me that I might even have personally known some of the younger people in the footage, albeit when they were much older.

I love the way the people in the film turn and look into the camera…as if they're watching us as we watch them...

My Grandmother was born in Salford, Manchester in 1901. It's amazing to be able to see this footage. Thank you.

Bloody MARVELLOUS! I can't stop looking at this film. All those people - long gone - and you just have to wonder what they were like. How they spoke. What happened to them. Fascinating and also very sad for some unexplainable reason...

you wait an hour for a tram then 3 come along at once, nothings changed in 100 years

Wow. How surreal is this to see back in time like that. Incredible. Well, it's quite mind-blowing because we read and hear about history yet there's never recorded footage. I know this isn't "old" compared to our history but it is still mind-blowing to see those people like that and how life was. Watched it twice!

It is such an odd feeling to watch this and know every single one of them is dead. It really speaks to just how pitifully short human existence is.

would love to go back to this era ...for just one day...

Very rare surviving film with the great clear quality for its age 120 years plus. Most old films of this age are grainy, light spots if you can get them to play. Nice restoration job on this one.

We haven't changed too much, we would still look at the people filming when we see them today.

Once I sat down to eat in a food court where they had early 1900s pictures embossed in the tables and realized the picture was of my grandfather. My Grandpa lived way into his 90's but died before I was born.

Wonderful. My great grandfather won medals in the Boer war and had a published "Letter from the Front" in a newspaper in 1900. My grandmother was only one year old when he left. He had been abroad before fighting too as he signed up in 1887 first, then 1891 (and again in 1914 for WWI which killed him off although he was allowed out with heart problems in 1915, conceived his last child in 1916 who was born a month before he died in 1917. Rightly he was remembered as a war hero in the local area and monument. We just found a lovely photo of his widow with the 10 surviving children (an 11th had died as a baby) including my grand mother of about 1918.

my God, these are our ancestors. this is us. this is who we became. this is beyond gold.

Как много людей и какие живые лица.....спасибо вам за эти шедевры....

Manchester was very busy with so many people going about their business. It 's still a great place to be. It has so much history. Thanks for sharing.

This is fascinating. Considering this is 1901 the framerate and overall quality is great. Amazing footage. Thanks for sharing it.

amazing clear footage... R.I.P. all those people and children...

RIP Everone

I love it when they look at the screen! That poor little boy in the big hat probably had to fight in the WWI.

What always interests me with film from this era, is the total lack of road safety! Youngsters and people generally just seem to mix with the traffic.

Life must have been much harder in those days.

anyone want to go back in time?

the quality of this footage is amazing for 1901 just look how clear it is

Watching these films is like taking a trip in a time machine.

Amazing how many horses were on the streets hundreds I expect

When you realize them looking at the camera and then you feel like you're being watched 😂😂

Just over 120 years on and so much has changed.

Wow... this gives me a feeling like nothing else. I can't explain it.

It’s rather remarkable that, although this video has been on RU-vid for over 12 years now and has had over 412, 000 views, nobody has yet come forward to identify either the soldier or the little boy in the white suit and the white hat. Surely someone, somewhere, must have a photo of this brave soldier and this seemingly well to do boy in their family album and know who they were.

It's scary to realize how long ago this really was.

Love this. And the music and voice over are done so sensitively.

Great narration,fantastic footage,thank you verry much.

Visited Manchester for a week and have just come back. The place is dripping with history, has a fantastic transport system, and very friendly people

Not a mobile phone in sight , stuck up against everyone’s ears , how refreshing ,

Amazing how clear the photography is

I think these films are brilliant, such an insight into a community long evolved.

Incredible to look back into the past. Makes me wonder about life the universe etc.

The ammount of times ive walked up cross street / corparation street, thanks for this video...great to see how it was over a century ago :)

In less than 70 years, they went from still riding around on horses to walking on the moon.

To think these absolute treasure were nearly lost forever, but for a massive stroke of luck.

I wish I live at this time.

✨ Amazing and wonderful to see. Best regards, Jen ✨

Every person in this clip are dead now, along with their lives, loves, hopes, dreams, fears and worries

fascinating; people'd shown up hoping to even play extras on-screen

Amazing footage !!

It is incredible that all these people were once living breathing functioning human beings. Fascinating the two young lads looking back.

Great quality film footage, a joy to watch.

These ancient videos are no less than the first videos ever shootes on Earth. The Beginning of everything that is today brought to us. May sound stupid but it is never too late to have that in conscious.

Excellent Video it's great to see history of local area 😀

Classic. I remember family telling me about times in "their day". It's really great to see this. So many changes in such a short period of time.

watching old footage like this (and being so ignorant..) am amazed at the numbers of people and how busy it always seems to be.. the mad mixed up traffic.. and pedestrians! it's wonderful being able to watch these things now. thankyou for sharing this.. (thanks for the commentary too) 🙂 x wonder if there's any of my town cardiff, south wales..??

The crowds in Manchester look very different in 2020, and not in a better way.

I'm watching this, on a computer, on the Internet, 111 years later. So much things have happen since than.

This is an absolutely marvelous video and want ot go back in time to see the hats personally six pence was quite a bit of money then

Weird to think of all the men I have researched in my family, who served in the first world war, all of them would have been young boys here. My great great grandfathers and my uncles growing up in this society where people were self sufficient and rather exuberant. People these days often dismiss the Edwardian era, stating that its old because it is over a century ago, but to think our grandparents, our parents even, have living memories of our great great grandparents is something extraordinary, and shows that this was not perhaps as long ago as we percieve. Also, I'm going to give my utmost respect to some of those young boys in that film, as some of them would have enlisted in different regiments come 1914.

Two of my three Mancunian grandparents were 8 and 1 at the time, and the third was born in the year this film was shot (the fourth grandparent was Swiss).

Amazing footage. Oddly moving. Everyone in the frame, regardless of station, has a kind dignity about them. Things have changed so much.

I love it.i feel nostalgic about this years.

Thank you

I love how everyone is so stunned by the presence of a camera. We wouldn't think twice about that now...do you know how much of our lives is recorded? Well it's a hellova lot! I think some of the mystery and wonder is taken out of life with too much on record.

Being a Mancunian, this footage is seriously poignant knowing one of ure relations might well be in frame. Crazy

A window into the past.. bravo

This is great!!

God bless Mitchel and Kenyon 🎥👍

Not enough stars in youtube to rate this collection...thanks for posting!

How I wish I could go back in time!

Everyone there with their own unique hopes, fears & daily tribulations; just like all of us today. And like them, future folk will look at footage of us.

I wish they could've captured the audio. Would be nice to hear how they spoke in 1901

Always fascinates me.

mesmerizing ...yes I would like to go back ..but just for a day...as much as I find this era incredibly interesting it was also a very dusty dirty time as well ...on the plus side people were much more friendlier and quite possibly more healthier than we are today ..and of course not near as expensive as today is either!!!

i would give anything to go back and experience that for a day.

Amazing.....

Well said! :)

excellent clip! 5*

i just love the victorian and edwardian films of the 1890s and turn of the 1900s wish i was born in that era though life would of been hard for many workers,,im so engrossed watching these old films,,facinating viewing ,,i found old films of my town middlesbrough of people coming out of churches in the old town in 1902 by mitchel + kenyon,,downloaded these for my history of old m/bro we called over the border the old town it was called ST HILDA,S for a reason we were a victorian town first house built for people like you n me was 1830 it had a plaque on the stone above the door dated 1830 its now in the dorman museam in m/bro,,middlesbrough lost a lot of beautiful buildings in the early 80s very important buildings the council pulled them down for progress!!! how dare they!!! i have old books of my town and original pictures prints from francis frith framed of my town i cherish them.

The way it was great time to live in uncomplicated

awesome.

My grandma was born into this world, just a couple of years later in Liverpool.

@muscleco My sentiments EXACTLY. Especially the sad bit. I think it is because these people are long gone. Not even memories anymore, except on this incredible footage. :(

Is the 2 hour show available on DVD ? Would love to see this

This is incredible, what a masterpiece, how times have changed, laws, road etc… whats fascinating people had more class back then, clothing looks super smart compare what we wearing today! Just pure class, the people are just fascinated by the new technology camera. We would do exactly to the same thing if we saw a flying car, humans reaction will never change when they see something unusual and new

I enjoy watching this video, in fact I recognize a lot of the people from my youth when my family lived in Manchester. That's me in the white suit next to the Boer war soldier who is actually my elder brother John.

Wow that is amazing quality. Sort of gives you an idea how people 100 years from now will see us although in color digital.

Amazing that these films have survived. They were shot on the old nitrate film stock, which basically crumbles to dust after a few decades.

It's fascinating isn't it? All those lives...not one person left alive in any of these scenes and yet they had lives...some short...some long...some adventurous...others likely mundane...arguments...loves...dislikes an entire life that we are still living they have lived already and now are no more.

great footage all wearing hats and caps

Thanks my home city to young 4 this I am 66yrs. I remember marching band army in Piccadilly gardens Manchester about 1956/7 army horses. John Rooney st.annes Lancashire

Wonderful narration. Bizarre world. Just like ours.

Looking for my Great Grandad who was a medium-sized chap with a big moustache...

It looks like a scene from another world

Classy times.

Another classic....

watched it again because of the music

Edwardian ladies were in my opinion the best dressed generation. Looked so smart and elegant, especially with their hats.

Wowww amazing

At 1:37 they are like.. "What the hell is that?" Well people, that's a camera, and we are looking at you.. 100 and almost 10 years later ;) Amazing!

bit awe inspiring watching this

Does anyone know what type of camera was being used to record?

What is this music? It's beautiful and hypnotic...

Thanks! The first time I was watching I couldn't listen because I was at wo-errr!! I mean, I was away from my own computer.