Birt Acres

One of the pioneers of the cinema, Birt Acres was responsible for the first British film (a record of the traditional Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race on 30 March 1895) using a camera he developed with Robert W. Paul. The collaboration started when Paul approached Acres (an established professional photographer) with a view to pooling their talents as inventors to invent a British machine that would be compatible with Thomas A. Edison's Kinetoscope. They produced several saleable films in 1895, but the partnership broke up acrimoniously over disagreements on who invented the equipment. Acres produced few films after this period, though he maintained his reputation as a manufacturer of cameras and film stock.