Phenakistoscope disc (National Media Museum)
The National Media Museum is the lead partner in the UK Screen Heritage Network and the survey of moving image and screen-related artefacts. Formerly known as the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, the Bradford-based museum exists to engage, inspire and educate by promoting an understanding and appreciation of photography, film, television, radio and the web; using its collection and knowledge to deliver a cultural programme accessibly and authoritatively. The museum’s website gives an overview of its many screen heritage collections:
The Museum’s diverse collections encompass some of the best, most significant and important visual material to be found anywhere in the world.
Our collection of photographs contains key images by the most influential photographers of our time including Julia Margaret Cameron, Anna Atkins, Martin Parr and Eve Arnold, and includes the world’s first negative and the pre-eminent William Henry Fox Talbot Collection. In 2003 we acquired the world famous Royal Photographic Society Collection
The Museum’s extensive collection of photographic technology contains equipment from early photography to current innovative practice. It includes The Kodak Museum Collection: a major collection of equipment which tells the story of popular photography.
The Cinematography Collection comprises equipment relevant to the filmmaking process. It includes equipment by eminent pioneers such as Auguste and Louis Lumière, Robert W Paul, Charles Pathé and Charles Urban, and unique and important objects such as the Le Prince cameras, the Varley camera, the Marey Chronophotographic equipment, apparatus by Friese Greene, Birt Acres and examples of an early Edison Kinetoscope and Kinetophone.
Television is strongly represented and incorporates an unrivalled collection of objects relating to the history and development of television: John Logie Baird’s 1923 experimental apparatus, a diverse range of television receivers, the Thames Television camera collection and a major archive of television commercials.
Michael Harvey, Curator of Cinematography, is the head of the UK Screen Heritage Network.
