The Baptist Cinema!
When the new year of 1907 dawned it proved decisive for the cinema in Arnold. At this time it moved from forming part of the occasional visiting side show in to a permanent building for the first time. The Kinematograph Year Book of that year records that there was now a resident cinema in Arnold.
Frederick Hartshorne
was granted the first licence in 1907 to show films in Arnold. Not much is known about him but he is thought to have been a 47 year old Greengrocer with premises on Front Street in Arnold.
The building being chosen for the project was the Baptist Church School Rooms, then on Front Street opposite the end of Worrall Ave.
It may seem that a church was an unusual place for a cinema, but church buildings were the main centres of social life at the time. They were already having Magic Lantern slide shows on a regular basis and cinema was therefore a natural progression.
It is not known for certain what films were shown but these would have all been of an educational or spiritually uplifting nature, probably with a moral. Many films of this type were made during this era and very often they were filmed versions of the lantern shows regularly performed up to this time. A very popular film, typical of this type, was The Little Match Girl made in 1902. It was
the earliest film adaptation of a story by Hans Christian Anderson
.
The Match Girl was a poor little girl who was hungry and freezing, as she had not sold any matchsticks. She tried to warm herself by lighting her matches. By the light of the last match she saw her grandmother, who then lifted her in her arms and they flew up to heaven. The next morning her frozen body was found with a smile upon its lips, and with a burned out bunch of matches.
This film, which has survived to this day, would have definitely been one of the films shown at the new Baptist Cinema.
.
The BaptistChurch did not renew its licence however; as it is not recorded in the next edition of the year book, the reason for this is unknown. Arnold was again without regular films until 1912 when the first purpose built cinema came to town.
The BaptistChurch on Front Street has now also gone, pulled down and replaced with a new Co op Store which has since become a branch of Boyes. This church was not lost to the town however as the congregation moved to the newly built Beacon Baptist Church on the Killisick Estate where no doubt films and slide shows are still shown..