ABSTRACT
Joseph Arthur Rank was the third son of a Yorkshire miller, who had turned his small local business into the largest milling concern in the country. J.Arthur received a thorough grounding in the milling business but as it was unlikely that he would inherit the family firm he sought outlets for his ambitions elsewhere. In 1933 he began to involve himself in the film industry, starting in a small way by backing the Religious Film Society and providing a few thousand pounds for a short religious film, Mastership. A year later he founded British National with Lady Yule, and in 1935 he joined a group of City of London financiers in putting up the money for a major new studioPinewood-and a film distribution company, General Film Distributors (GFD).
