Historic Pathe archive placed on internet

A collection of more than 12 million historic photographs has been created from Britain’s world famous British Pathe newsreel archive for free internet access.
British Pathe’s film collection spanning events across most of the 20th century – and some of the UK’s most memorable occasions – has been used to capture millions of historic moments as individual photographs. This is the first time that a picture library has been created on this scale from moving image masters.
The new collection is being made freely available to the public for research and teaching through National Lottery support from the New Opportunities Fund.
British Pathe – once as familiar to UK cinema-goers as television news today - is now run by ITN.
Among the millions of historic images being made available through this latest internet initiative are scenes of the D-Day landings, which will be commemorated next year in events being supported with lottery money by the New Opportunities Fund.
ITN Archive Marketing Director Peter Fydler said: "We believe the pictures will add real depth and enjoyment to school history projects and other classroom work, not just in the UK but across the world.
“Since the digitisation of British Pathe's newsreel archive a year ago, with the support of the New Opportunities Fund, we've been able to let people view most of the important events of the 20th century on film. That access has proved really popular with young people, but it is just as satisfying for older internet users who want to see again events they may only vaguely remember or have heard about from parents and grandparents."
Enhanced High Resolution versions of the images are also available for the first time to the publishing community and other business users.
(gmcg)