In these two short snippets from the Pathé film archive, we see nine Newlyn fishermen petition the Minister of Health at Westminster and a post-war ‘cinemagazine’ painting the picture of Newlyn as a typical fishing village. The London crowds welcome the fishermen in their small boat, ‘Rosebud’ as they arrive in Westminster to petition the Minister of Health. They have sailed from Cornwall and up the Thames to Westminster. Why? The fishermen took a petition to the Minister of Health, campaigning against the demolition of their cottages in a government housing scheme. They’re welcomed by Londoners on the dockside.
Created at the beginning of the 20th Century by the Pathé brothers, the newsreel was the world’s first televised news platform. Pioneering the technology and methods of cinema, British Pathé stayed at the forefront of filmed news for decades. Releasing three newsreels a week during that period, British Pathé was the way the people of Britain experienced world events until the advent of television.