OTD in early British television: 9 March 1938
John Wyver writes: The Spring 1938 Craftsmen at Work series featured demonstrations in the AP studio of a potter at work at a wheel, of whisket-making (constructing baskets from strips of oak), withy-weiving (working with willow) and, on 9 March, a blacksmith. The series was one element of television starting to look beyond London and embrace rural England, also apparent in the monthly OB broadcasts On the Farm.
For the blacksmith, a furnace was installed in the lower scene dock, although it proved hard to get the camera sufficiently close to see details. As a critic recorded,
The swift balanced movements of the man, and his shadow against the wall were decorative and exciting to watch, but of the actual job in hand, we could see little or nothing.
Forty-five years earlier, one of the very first films made for the Edison studio by W.K.L. Dickson was also of a blacksmith at work.
While it looks like it might well be from the AP broadcast, the header image is in fact an anonymous photograph titled ‘Students of Schule Schloss Salem assisting a blacksmith’, c. 1929, from the glorious, and open access, image collection of the Rijksmuseum.
I can find no visual trace of the broadcast itself.
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