- Détails
- Création : 24 mars 2015
- Mis à jour : 21 janvier 2025
- Publication : 24 mars 2015
Henry Vassar LAWLEY
(Forest Hill, 1876-Somersetshire, 1945)
Jean-Claude SEGUIN
2
Les origines (1876-1898)
Fils de Joseph Lawley, "Colonial Commission Agent", Henry Lawley est recensé, en 1881, avec sa famille à Londres. Dix ans plus tard, il y figure encore (recensement 1891). Son père est fait citoyen d'honneur de la capitale britannique, en 1895.
Les images animées (1899-1918)
La Hepworth Film Mfg. Co. (1899-1903)
Dans ses mémoires, Cecil M. Hepworth raconte de quelle manière Joseph Lawley, père d'Henry, propose de rentrer financièrement dans l'entreprise et d'embaucher son fils :
An old gentelman-we thought he was old-came to see us at Walton for some reason which is now buried in the mists of forgotten things. He looked around at everything we could show him, asked a good many questions and at last asked me if I would sell half the business as it stood and take his son, H. V. Lawley, as my partner. We discussed terms, settled upon a price and made some suitable arrangement for Monty Wicks and that was that. The new money was a very great help, for we were down to our last fiver. It is some little consolation to realise now that that condition is not entirely unknown in modern studio practice.
Partner Lawley soon picked up our peculiar ways and, being no snob, settled down at once without demur to our primitive household habits. It dit not take him long to acquire enough knowledge of cinematography to make him a useful operator. Soon after he arrived I took on another very useful man named Percy Stow who developed a great aptitude for ingenious trick-work in films, and as both of them were well able and willing to take their turns at the developing and printing machine, turn and turn about with me whenever necessary, we all got on famously together.
HEPWORTH, 1951: 53.
Il a ainsi engagé également Percival Stow. Dans les mois qui suivent, Henry V. Lawley va se retrouver derrière la caméra et on lui doit un nombre significatif de vues animées :
Then there are several more of these alleged 'comics' whose only interest now is that they seem to show gradual progress to better work, and then we come to more news pictures of the return of the C.I.V.s from South Africa, and to no less than nine films of life in the British Army and thirty similarly devoted to the Navy-all, I think, taken by our new recruit, H. V. Lawley, who had, by then, been with us long enough to learn how to use a camera, and use it to good effect.
HEPWORTH, 1951: 55-56.
En 1901, Henry vit toujours avec sa famille et se déclare "Photographer" (recensement 1901). S'il est probable qu'il ait tourné de nombreux films au cours des années où il reste attaché à la Hepworth Film Co., leurs titres restent à identifier. Cette collaboration va se prolonger jusqu'en 1904. Au début du printemps, le partenariat entre Cecil M. Hepworth et Henry V. Lawley prend fin :
The partnership heretofore subsisting between Messrs C. M. Hepworth and H. V. Lawley, trading as Hepworth and Co., has been dissolved by mutual consent, and Mr. H. V. Lawley will in the future, as in the past, carry on the business of manufacturer of cinématograph films, and will personally superintend their printing and development. He has secured the valuable services of Mr P. E. Stow, who was connected with the late firm for the past four years, and whose work is so well known. Professionals and the trade may rely upon the photographic excellence of the new series of films, which will be remarkable for their steadiness and entire freedom from blemishes. The new films will be known as “Clarendon Series,” and may be obtained by writing to the Clarendon Film Co., Clarendon-road, Croydon.
The Era, Londres, samedi 14 mai 1904, p. 22.
The Clarendon Film Company (1904-1908)
La nouvelle société, "The Clarendon Film Company", est fondée à Croydon.
The Era, Londres, samedi 14 mai 1904, p. 31.
La première production, Off for the Holidays, sort à l'Alhambra en août 1904, mais les informations parues dans la presse comportent quelques erreurs :
OWNERSHIP OF A FILM.
The Alhambra pictures, "Off for the Holidays," which proved so popular, were, the "Express" is informed, the work of the Clarendon Film Company, of Clarendon-road, Croydon.
An amusing picture in which a four-whelled cab, loaded with a family and their luggage, was seen to collapse was taken in Croydon and not at Clapham.
It was put upon the market by the Clarendon Film Company, and a copy was purchased in the ordinary course of business from this firm through their London agents, Messrs. L. Gaumont and Co.
On August 27, the production at the Alhambra was credited, by error, to these purchasers instead of to the originators and manufacturers.
Daily Express, Londres, jeudi 8 septembre 1904, p. 3.
La Clarendon dont la production est diffusée par la société Gaumont va d'ailleurs être lancée grâce à ce premier film comme l'évoque Percival E. Stow :
The Company's first productions was "Off for the Holidays," and, said Mr. Stow, "the sale of this film has probably reached a world's record, which is decidedly satisfactory for a first issue, and a sufficiently reliable indication of no lack of experience or judgment.
Mr. P. E. Stow, 1908: 539.
En 1904, l'entreprise va produire une dizaine de films, puis une vingtaine en 1905 et une quizaine l'année suivante. L'année 1907 va être marqué par un drame, la mort d'un des collaborateurs occasionnels lors d'un tournage :
A fatal issue also attended the accident which occurred to Mr. William Zeitz, of the Clarendon Film Co., while he was acting the part of a signalman in a train wrecking scene which was being photographed on the railway at Stoats Nest, near Croydon. Mr. Zeitz had a clever dog, and this suggested the plot of a subject which was being carried out when the accident occurred which has had such unhappy results.
A number of the firm's employees, posing as train wreckers, placed a sleeper on the rails. Mr. Zeitz, as a signalman on his way to work, was to discover this, to be seized by the wreckers, and bound to the rails in front of the oncoming train. The dog, coming with its master's dinner, was to discover his plight, and go back and bring the signalman's wife on the scene, so saving both the train and the signalman.
The scene had been acted up to the point where the train is expected, when, according to one account, a train passing on the next set of rails caught the projecting end of the sleeper and flung it against Mr. Zeitz. Another version says that the train, utilised in the plot did not pull up in time, and hurled the sleeper on Mr. Zeitz, narrowly escaping going over him. Mr. Zeitz was struck by the sleeper in one of these ways, and taken to the Croydon Hospital where he died three days later.
INQUEST AND VERDICT.
As we go to press an account comes to hand of the coroner's inquest on Mr. Zeitz from which it would appear that the driver of the train did not stop in time but came on, so that the engine caught the sleeper and dragged the man with it along the track for several yards. The medical evidence was to the effect that five ribs were broken and that death was due to rupture of the lungs, and the jury returned a verdict of accidental death.
Kinematograph Weekly, lundi 15 avril 1907, p. 22.
Quelques mois plus tard, en octobre, Henry V. Lawley épouse une jeune femme suisse.
C'est au début de l'année 1908 que les deux associés Henry Vassar Lawley et Percival E. Stow mettent fin à leur collaboration :
LEGAL NOTICES.
[...]
The partnership between Henry Vassar Lawley and Percival Edwin Stow, cinematographers, of Clarendon Road, Croydon, Surrey, trading as The Clarendon Film Company, has been dissolved by mutual consent. All debts will be received or paid by P. E. Stow.
The British Journal of Photography, 27 mars 1908, p. 257.
Et après... (1909-1945)
The new printing plant which Messrs. A. C. and Reginald Bromhead have installed at the Gaumont laboratories, Shepherd's Bush, is the remarkable invention of H. V. Lawley of the Lawley Apparatus Company, Limited, and makes posible a weekly output of over one million feet of perfect film. I watched the whole process with the greatest interest. It is claimed that the running cost is considerably reduced, as a 40 horse-power engine does the work hitherto accomplished by a large staff.Le Bioscope, jeudi 28 juin 1923, p. 33.
Is a director of the Lawley Apparatus Company, Limited (Bioscope, 11 décembre 1924)
Woking Crematorium. Woking.
Ses activités comme manager de la Clarendon Film Co. Ltd prennent fin le 31 juillet 1918 qui marque la date de son intégration dans les forces aériennes britanniques dans l'unité "London Phot Centre".
En 1921, Henry Lawley et son fils Derrick résident à Londres.
Le couple et leur fils est recensé à Bridgwater en 1939. Ce dernier figure comme statisticien et deviendra une figure connue des mathématiques de l'université d'Edimbourg.
Sources
HEPWORTH Cecil M., Came the Dawn: Memories of a Film Pioneer, London, Phoenix House, 1951, 208 p.
"Mr. P. E. Stow and the Clarendon Film Co.", Kinematograph Weekly, jeudi 15 octobre 1908, p. 539.
