George Henderson

Born in 1848, Henderson was a film pioneer in north-east England at the turn of the 20th century. A strict Methodist, he began working in a colliery before marrying in 1871 and then becoming a magic lantern showman and lecturer. He began exhibiting moving pictures in 1896, a matter of weeks after the Lumière brothers made their first presentations in England. The first films he showed were ones made by himself. Highly successful, he opened a network of several picture palaces across the north-east, including the first cinema in Newcastle in 1908, which he ran with his three sons. He also founded the North of England Film Bureau, which ran from 1910 to 1942. He personally knew the other pioneer filmmakers Cecil Hepworth and Alfred Bromhead, from whom he commissioned a film during his exhibition days.