We're bringing into focus a wide range of women amateur filmmakers whose creative work has been overlooked and unacknowledged in the archives.
Working closely with two partner archives, the East Anglian Film Archive (EAFA) and the Irish Film Archive (IFA), we have conducted new research into existing collections of largely unknown women amateur filmmakers.
Our work
By identifying significant gaps in knowledge at the level of cataloguing, accession records, historical research, and metadata – and by adopting feminist methodologies that allow us to challenge existing practices – we have developed a toolkit that will allow any archive with a moving image collection to create more effective, useful and accessible records about women filmmakers.
The Filmmakers
As part of this work, we have produced a set of biographies that highlight some of these amazing creative women. As a small step to making such women’s filmmaking more broadly available, below you will find small selection of women amateur filmmakers from across the UK and Ireland collections.
A prolific filmmaker active in and around Essex, Joan Hammond (1918-2016) was a founder member of the Clacton Cine Club in 1959, acting as club chairperson on three occasions between the 1960s and the 1990s. Her own films tended to focus on local events and family holidays in the UK and abroad; her involvement in club productions included documentary productions.
Joan Hammond c.1988. Frinton and Walton Heritage Trust Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2016
Phyllis Joan Ratcliffe was born on 14th August 1918 in Frinton, Essex. The Ratcliffe’s were a well-known family locally: her parents and uncle Archie ran Great Holland’s Iron Foundry (founded by Joan’s grandfather); the family had designed and developed their own make of lawnmower; and her other uncles Claude, Cyril, and Telford ran Ratcliffe Garage from 1898 through to the Second World War.
In the 1940s Joan’s husband, Ted Hammond, took over the running of the business and renamed it Hammond’s Garage. The garage and Joan’s family were the stars of a 1930s film, Ratcliffe Garage, although whether this was one of Joan’s early films remains unknown: she does appear in the film in several sequences. Described as a "hard-working and astute businesswoman", Joan took over the management of the garage after her husband’s death, eventually running it with her son, Richard.
Her talent for management was also clear in her three terms as chair of Clacton Cine Club, her involvement in club productions, and her own filmmaking. She worked with many of the cine club’s other filmmakers including Sydney Manasseh, Laurie Stanton, D.J. Robinson, F. Wright, G. Wakefield, E. Tulley, Alan Gaffer, and Mrs E. Moore.
We believe she may also have encouraged the early work of Miss Pauline Webb, a Clacton Cine Club member from the 1970s on, whose films are also held at the East Anglian Film Archive (EAFA). Other Clacton Cine Clubs that were donated to EAFA include drama-documentary Nine Men and a Boat (1964) and Sailing A’hoy (1975): although the latter film is credited to Bert Gregory, John Douglas, and Arthur Webber, Joan’s interest in sailing may indicate that she had some additional involvement in these productions.
Promenaders (c.1970s). Courtesy of the East Anglian Film Archive
One of Joan’s collaborative club films was produced to celebrate its 21st anniversary in 1980. Joan’s original script for this film included instructions for filming at various Clacton locations where the club had met through its history (Waverley Hotel, Southcliffe Hotel, the Methodist Church Hall, and Green Lodge) and still images of different members.
The script also specified the use of sequences from existing Standard 8 and Super 8 films; ‘Film offcuts’ of some of the club’s best-known films The Obedient Wife; Easy Come, Easy Go; and By Fair Means and Foul; and untitled films that could be used for "shots during filming of Wedding sequence at St. James" and "members in Green Lodge Club room." The script also intended to highlight a "ladies film… [made] in competition with the men" and would use club minutes and aims to highlight its growth since 1959.
Donkey Derby (1969). Courtesy of the East Anglian Film Archive
Joan and her husband Ted made films individually and as a team, sharing camera operating and editing duties on their family and travel films. Around sixty of Joan and Ted’s films have survived although detailed catalogue records only exist for a handful of those. Joan’s interest in local activities can be seen in films such as The Great Snowfall (1958) which captures images of the wintry conditions that froze Frinton, including cars being dug out, deserted streets and shops, and frozen power cables.
Their travel films range from British trips in the 1950s – Woolverstone (1956) is a well-produced record of their trip with images of caravans, settling in at the Royal Harwich Yacht Club campsite, and out on a sailing boat – to world travel in later decades when they ventured further afield, as shown in A Date in Tunisia (1972) and Down Under Australia (1977). Clips from some of their films would later be used in the 2002 Anglian Television documentary programme The Way We Were (2002).
Selected Filmography
Ratcliffe Garage (1930s) Watch via EAFA.org
Woolverstone (1956) Watch via EAFA.org
The Great Snowfall (1958) Watch via EAFA.org
Turkey Time (1961) Watch via EAFA.org
Camping With Father (1961)
Glass of Wine Slalom (1963)
Donkey Derby (1969) Watch via EAFA.org
High and Dry (1970s)
Promenaders (1970s)
Frinton Flyer (1970) Watch via BFI Player
A Date in Tunisia (1972)
Dach’s Delight (1973)
Down Under Australia (1979)
Gold Fever (1986)
Bibliography
Ellis, Linda. 2016. ‘Obituary for Phyllis Joan Hammond: A Daughter of Great Holland.’ Frinton and Walton Heritage Trust Newsletter. Spring/Summer. [Online] Available at: https://www.fwheritage.co.uk/_webedit/uploaded-files/All%20Files/newsletters/FWHT_News_2016_Q1.pdf [accessed 19 December 2022].
EAFA. 2022. ‘The Great Snowfall.’ [Online] Available at: https://eafa.org.uk/work/?id=2341 [accessed 19 December 2022].
EAFA. 2022. ‘Ratcliffe Garage.’ [Online] Available at: https://eafa.org.uk/work/?id=1002920 [accessed 19 December 2022].
EAFA. 2022. ‘Woolverstone.’ [Online] Available at: https://eafa.org.uk/work/?id=1051080 [accessed 19 December 2022].
Hammond, Joan. 1980. ‘Ideas: Club Film.’ [Typed script and handwritten notes, undated].
Our partners
This work comes from a joint UK-Ireland collaboration between the University of East Anglia, Maynooth University, and the University of Sussex; funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Irish Research Council (IRC), as part of the UK-Ireland Digital Humanities scheme.
