A sad reminder of how we are slowly losing access to audio visual materials is the 1969 royal opening of what was originally called College Block, but is now known as Sherfield Building. The event was covered on silent 16mm film. Once it was edited, we added a sound track to the film along with a commentary. Sadly the sound is on an unusual magnetic track format along the edge of the film and I’ve not succeeded in finding a facility to make a transfer into digital form (and at a cost we might agree on).
The one clip I have is from an early transfer I made myself onto videotape, but has since itself now disappeared. This clip was incorporated in a compilation video I made for the college archives, so only exists because of that tape. So, here is all we currently have of the full 16mm film, unless YOU know a way that we can get it transferred, preferably at no cost! The photo was taken many years ago from part of the actual 16mm film.
Leslie Croker came to work in the Chemistry Department of Imperial College in 1926 as a lab boy. In 1949 he was made a Laboratory Superintendent for the Physical and Inorganic chemical laboratories and later in 1956 for the entire Department of Chemistry.
He was greatly involved in the training of technicians at Imperial College (and in London in general) and talks about this in the video.
Back in October 2010 I brought to you an extract from a unique 16mm colour film that was residing in the college archives since 1973.
Robert W Sarnoff was President & Chief Executive of RCA (Radio Corporation of America). He was the eldest son of broadcasting mogul Brig. Gen. David Sarnoff, he followed in his father’s professional footsteps throughout his career at NBC and RCA. On October 25th 1973 he received the Fellowship of Imperial College at Commemoration Day. The citation for Sarnoff indicates that he was the benefactor of the Imperial College Haldane Music Library. News of this Commemoration Day Fellowship was reported in the Milwaukee Journal in November 1973 and the Nashua Telegraph in December of the same year, so this must have been important. Also here’s a report in Felix the student newspaper.
Sarnoff paid for large parts of the 1973 ceremony to be filmed in colour and or course with sound. Lord Flowers (1924-2010) was Rector at the time and speaking at the ceremony was David Sinclair – Student Orator; Professor Gerald Whitrow (1912-2000) – Staff Orator and the Chairman of the Governing Body – Lord Sherfield (1904-1996). Eric Brown is seen conducting the Choir. This is the earliest moving picture record the college has of one of its ceremonies and it’s thanks to Robert Sarnoff that this happened. One of the greatest achievements by RCA and Sarnoff in particular was the development and introduction of colour TV in the USA. At the dedication ceremony of NBC’s new Washington, D.C. facility on May 22, 1958, Sarnoff introduced President Eisenhower who became the first President to then appear on Colour TV. For those interested, you can see an amazing videotape that has been rediscovered of this event. The tape represents the earliest known colour television recording discovered to date.
Here then is the full 16mm colour film of Commemoration Day, being shown for the first time after its transfer into digital form.
I was recently ploughing my way through yet more archive videotapes and discovered another piece of Imperial College history. On the 11th November 1976 we recorded an interview with the then Rector of Imperial, Sir Brian Flowers. Later he was to become Lord Flowers of Queen’s Gate.
During the interview James Sinclair, who was then the STOIC Chairman, discussed many topics, including the current building extension application for Linstead Hall, one of the accommodation buildings around Prince’s Gardens (east side) which was rejected by Westminster City Council. The extension finally happened in 1980, both the original and extension buildings have subsequently been demolished and replaced by Eastside. Brian Flowers was the most cooperative of our rectors when it came to being interviewed, either in the studio or elsewhere. I think he felt that such collaboration with the studio and other ‘media’ on the campus would pay itself back when discussions took place on student matters or affairs. He was certainly one of the most popular rectors.
When the interview was recorded we were still operating in black and white, colour was three years away. However, the ‘new’ studio had only opened during the summer of 1976 and was once again to be modified when colour arrived in 1979. I reckon this was the first rector interview in the new studio, which for those that remember, was on level 2 of the main walkway. The photo on the right was taken in 2006.
In 1987, the University of London (of which Imperial was then part of) made a film called ‘Not just another university’ to promote and showcase itself to a wider audience. The ULAVC (University of London Audio-Visual Centre) was based at 11 Bedford Square and served the needs of any of the schools or colleges that made up the university. As the centre had the skills and facilities to make professional 16mm films it was the natural facility to make this promotional programme. Imperial College is featured in it too, initially with some aerial shots and mind boggling statistics prior to Sir Eric Ash, then Rector, who is seen in the original Rector’s Sherfield Building office. ALICE the Imperial College built computer is seen running. The Chemical Engineering Pilot Plant is featured with Prof Kerschenbaum talking about its uses and operation. Felix, the student newspaper (photo on right during filming) is shown being produced, along with Dave Jones, Editor talking about the weekly publication process. Having spent 12 years as Rector of Imperial College, Lord Brian Flowers then moved on to become Vice-Chancellor of the University of London and he is seen sitting casually on the edge of his desk in his Senate House office. Towards the end of the programme Wye College, as was, is seen during its heyday bustling with students, this must be the only time it was featured on film a unique record.
The film also got a one-off airing in December 1987 on Channel Four, one of the UK’s main broadcast TV stations.
I have recently rediscovered the first interview shot with a Rector in colour. It was recorded in December 1980 in the Sherfield Building office of Lord Flowers (1924-2010) who was Rector from 1973 to 1985.
Lady and Lord Flowers in 2000
The student TV (STOIC) had expressed an interest in interviewing him and I agreed to collaborate in the recording to enable it to be shot in colour. I thought at the time, that this would be good from an archive point-of-view. And 34 years later, my idea has just paid off! There are several other blog entries on Lord and Lady Flowers, but this one had escaped me until now. The interviewer is Mike Prosser, with an introduction made in the college’s former TV Studio. The interview was made as a ‘special’, within the normal weekly programme called News-Break. That programme was transmitted to all of the college halls across campus, as well as the union building. As in previous early colour videos featured within this blog, it will not be up to even the standards of a modern domestic camcorder, but at least we do have it. The previous colour interview with Lord Flowers was featured in my 2010 entry. That previous video was from 1984 and I had only just rediscovered it, so this 1980 video is adding to our collection. The last time I saw Lord Flowers was during a short visit to his house and we were sitting around his kitchen table having lunch with Lady Flowers.
Predating the 1993 Undergraduate and Postgraduate Videos, seen in a previous blog, Lady Clare Ash (the wife of former Rector Sir Eric Ash) made a one-off video called Snapshots.
Lady Clare Ash in 2007
It was made to showcase just some of the then current research taking place at Imperial. I seem to recall that Eric Ash was about to go on an overseas trip to several countries, including India and that this was made to accompany his presentations. You’ll notice the emphasis on past Imperial Nobel Prize winners at the start of the video and a rather slow list of Imperial’s Fellows of the Royal Society towards the end.
Several areas of research from around the college were featured. Two Nobel Prize winners included were the late Lord George Porter (1920-2002) and the late Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson (1921-1996), both are seen working in their respective labs. Bob Schroter (featured in a previous blog) talks about his work with Camels; Steve Ley, formerly from Chemistry, discusses pest control, whilst Howard Thomas from St Mary’s talks about Hepatitis Vaccine.
Towards the end, we featured some of the first ‘vox pops’ in one of our videos, where current students talk about their experiences and views of being at Imperial College. You will see the first aerial footage of Imperial used at the start of the video. This was provided to us by the (then) University of London Audio Visual Centre and was shot by them as part of a 16mm film they made for Channel Four Television. The video concludes with the former Rector himself, Sir Eric Ash, speaking direct to the audience with his views on where Imperial is today and what his vision is for Imperial tomorrow. This was shot in the old Rectors office up in the Sherfield Building.
20 years ago, in 1993, an attempt was made at the production of an ideally ongoing video prospectus, one for undergraduates and one for postgraduates.
Unusually for a student recruitment piece, these were conceived by the then Rector’s wife, Clare Ash and produced by her daughter Jenny (who was working in TV production) – effectively making two videos in parallel using a great number of the same shoots in both. Without more involvement from the departments and central services, the videos perhaps didn’t capture the imagination of academics or administrators.
Probably ahead of its time, the project didn’t have the required support from the offices handling recruitment and PR and it didn’t continue – but they do capture the spirit and feel of the College some twenty years ago.
Undergraduate Video
If you look at this, see the graphics and say “What?”, then you’ll know my thoughts, both then and even now some twenty years on! There are great shots of the old language lab and Richard Dickins with the college orchestra, both of these showing the non science side of Imperial. Once more we have some (now) important archive shots of Prince’s Gardens and the old halls, especially Linstead Hall showing the famous evening meal (photo on right). This was the only time this was recorded and is special for that reason. We also featured IC Radio, STOIC and Felix in production for that weeks edition. And finally we have the first ever video shots of a Commemoration Day at the Royal Albert Hall.
Postgraduate Video
In general this will look more or less the same as the undergraduate version, but includes some now unique shots of Lord George Porter working in his lab in the basement of the Beit Building (photo on left). We also ventured out to Silwood Park to show some research work going on there. At this time the Science Communication course had started and we almost featured ourselves by showing two of the students working at our editing suite (even though this was of course staged). Finally a great and short-lived hall is featured. Does anyone remember the Postgraduate only Montpelier Hall in Montpelier Street, almost within sight of Harrods? Well, that’s in here too towards the end of the video.
Its such a shame that neither of these videos were appreciated within the college because a massive amount of time and effort went into making them both. We used about 12 or more one-hour video cassettes for the ‘rushes’ and because they contain some very unique material such as George Porter I still have them today in our video archive. See what you think and let me know if you are seen appearing in either of them. Some years after we made them both, several boxes of unused and unrequired VHS tape copies of both of the videos were returned to me, they were all thrown in the bin!
Back in 2010 I brought you the two videos that were made to coincide with the City and Guilds centenary in 1985, they were Studying for the Future and Discovering the Future. I had promised to bring you a third video made later in that year called Mastering the Future. Obviously, this video was intended to showcase and promote the idea of taking a masters degree at Imperial College.
Key figures from Industry were featured to give a sense of what was required from University students taking such masters degrees. One person appearing was Sir George Porter, later Lord Porter who was then President of the Royal Institution. Later he moved to Imperial College to continue his research work. By the time the video was made Eric Ash had become Rector, superseding Brian Flowers. One of the few recordings that we have of Professor Bruce Sayers, then head of computing and also dean of City and Guilds is part of this video. Once more there are some great views of ‘Imperial past’ featured such as: the original front entrance on Exhibition Road; Sports Centre and Gym; Libraries and the 1960’s Walkway with Bookshop.
The oldest videotape recording of one of our rectors of Imperial College is that of Lord Penney (1909-1991). Rector of the college from 1967 to 1973 he took the post over from Sir Owen Saunders who was acting rector from 1966 to 1967 after the death of Sir Patrick Linstead in 1966. Recorded in 1971 for showing to students via the fledgling Student Television of Imperial College (STOIC). I can’t remember whether or not this was part of one of the trial news programmes called IC Newsreel, or perhaps designed as as stand-alone programme, I think maybe the latter is more likely.
Our studio, if you could have called it that, was rather basic and sparse. As you’ll see in the video we had no background of any type at that time. The rare colour photo shows a slight improvement in 1974 when we managed to get some grey curtains! As this was well before the advent of the ‘tie-clip’ microphone, we used what were called neck-mics. A microphone on a thin cord that went around the neck and were very common at that time for PA system use. They did however provided much better sound than trying to use mics on stands or similar.
A former student of Imperial College, Lord Penney initially worked on the Manhattan Project during WW2 and was a flight observer of the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki. Penney was asked in 1947 to head the team that ultimately produced Britain’s first nuclear test and in 1957 this was successfully carried out off of the Australian coast. He touches very briefly upon this during the interview, even though he was reluctant to discuss it in any great detail (he doesn’t actually mention the British nuclear test). You can watch the TV programme Equinox which includes an interview with Lady Penney. The interviewer for our video was Dave Willis, who I know very little about, other than he was a computer science postgrad student, but I don’t recall the years that he was at Imperial.
This is a newly restored version of the video that was shot originally on Ampex one-inch tape format. I’ve managed to clean, and brighten up, the image to a certain degree, but it is 42 years old. The original master tape now resides in the Imperial College Archives. On the link to the film of Operation Hurricane you’ll see Penney (on board a boat) turning around and using Binoculars to see the resulting explosion.
The event was covered on silent 16mm film. Once it was edited, we added a sound track to the film along with a commentary. Sadly the sound is on an unusual magnetic track format along the edge of the film and I’ve not succeeded in finding a facility to make a transfer into digital form (and at a cost we might agree on).
