From Theatre Manager to Globetrotting Cameraman: The Strange Career of Charles Rider Noble (1854-1914)

This essay outlines the career of Charles Rider Noble, who worked in the theatre in Northampton and Brixton through the 1880s and 1890s and became a travelling cameraman in 1900. Subsequently, working mainly for Charles Urban, he filmed in South Africa, Morocco, Bulgaria and South America. In three of these locations he filmed ongoing military conflict or its immediate aftermath. When it was not possible to record actual events he occasionally "arranged" activities to be filmed, these being early examples of what the author refers to as arranged actualities. The article is founded on extensive research in film catalogues and periodicals and in family history sources.