ABSTRACT
One of Britain’s first trading houses was the Walturdaw Company, founded only a month after Robert W. Paul began exhibiting his films at the Alhambra in London. All the films manufactured by British producers were at first stocked by Walturdaw and their rivals, but Walker produced the company’s own films in their studio and factory at Wembley Park. Until recently the name of Walturdaw could still be seen in Gerrard Street, London, where the company specialized in the sale of cinema equipment. In 1902 Walturdaw introduced their famous Cinematophone, an early synchronized disc and film system. The motion picture business was now booming all over America and Europe, and in more remote parts of the world. In Brooklyn, New York, the world’s largest cinema was being planned at Bedford Avenue and the Eastern Parkway, and Pathe’s pictures were being shown to crowded houses on the other side of the world, in the Royal Albert Hall, Auckland.
