Scottish Cinemas
Early cinemas
Moving pictures arrived in Scotland in the mid-1890s courtesy of a small number of entrepreneurs promoting their various inventions for projecting moving images, and fairground showmen who began to include bioscope or cinematograph shows as part of the regular entertainment. Just prior to the Great War, cinema began to settle down on permanent sites with ice rinks, churches and music halls being converted for the showing of ‘pictures’ on a nightly basis. The twenties saw a period of lavishly decorated purpose-built ‘picture palaces’ reflecting cinema’s upward move from its origins as a working-class entertainment.
The impact of ‘the Talkies’
The arrival of talking pictures in the late 1920s heralded the end for the some of the smaller ‘bug huts’ as the expensive technology for sound reproduction and the alteration necessary to the building pushed the smaller operators out of business. The era of the super cinema had arrived, and with it the growth of the big cinema circuits. The Green family were the pioneers in Scotland, building Green’s Playhouse in Glasgow and Dundee, two of the largest cinemas in the country in their day. The ABC cinema chain had its origins in Glasgow with John Maxwell’s company Scottish Cine and Variety Theatres, and in the north the Inverness based Caledonian Associated Cinemas held sway.
Post-war cinema
Cinema attendances boomed in the war years, the last great era of the big screen. Competition from television in the 1950s and 1960s and a dearth of good family entertainment for the big screen led to a steep decline in cinema attendances. Many cinemas closed or converted to bingo halls. Those that survived into the 1970s and 1980s saw the era of the multi-screen site – large auditoriums architect designed – being twinned or tripled, followed by the inexorable rise of the multiplex of the 1990s and today, in their turn putting these older sites out of business. Few cinema buildings survive today in their original architectural splendour.
The National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive (formerly the Scottish Screen Archive) holds films, videos and moving images by amateur and professional filmmakers. It also holds cinema memorabilia, business records from some cinemas and records of some film societies, as well as film production records and records of bodies concerned with the development of film in Scotland. Some local and university archives services hold cinema memorabilia and records of local film societies. Local authority archives services may hold licensing registers for cinemas and theatres.
Compiler: Janet McBain (Scottish Screen Archives, 2002)
Related Knowledge Base entries
Bibliography
Dick, Eddie (ed.), From Limelight to Satellite (Scottish Film Council/British Film Institute, 1990)
McBain, Janet, Pictures Past: recollections of Scottish cinemas and cinema-going (Moorfoot, 1985)
Peter, Bruce, 100 Years of Glasgow’s Amazing Cinemas (Polygon, 1996)
Petrie, Duncan, The British Cinematographer (British Film Institute, 1996)
Thomas, Brendan, The Last Picture Shows, Edinburgh: ninety years of cinema entertainment in Scotland’s capital city (Moorfoot, 1984)
Many histories of local cinemas have been published and the following are only a small sample of what can be found. A search of the National Library of Scotland’s catalogues will provide a more comprehensive list.
Hood, John, ‘The Clydebank Pavilion & Variety Theatre’, Clydebank Historical Journal, 8 (1988)
Hood, John, ‘No Waits, No Flickers, No Breakdowns’ Clydebank Historical Journal, 6 (1986)
Hornsey, Brian, Ninety Years of Cinema in Dumfries, Perth & Stirling (Fuchsiaprint, 1996)
Hornsey, Brian, Ninety Years of Cinema in Dundee (Fuchsiaprint, 1996)
Hornsey, Brian, Ninety Years of Cinema in Falkirk (Fuchsiaprint, 1997)
Hornsey, Brian, Ninety Years of Cinema in Inverness (Fuchsiaprint, 1997)
Hornsey, Brian, Ninety Years of Cinema in Montrose, Portobello and Kelso (Fuchsiaprint, 1998)
Newton, Norman S., The Wee Pictures: A History of the Picture House, Campbeltown 1913 – 1989 (Campbeltown Community Business Ltd, 1989 & 2008)
Taylor, Mike, Julia Watson & Colin Liddell, A Night at the Pictures (Dumbarton District Libraries, 1992)
Thomson, Michael, Silver Screen in the Silver City: a history of cinemas in Aberdeen, 1896-1987 (Aberdeen, 1988)
Where can I find a photograph of a particular cinema?
There are several possible sources for photographs of individual cinemas:
The largest collection of photographs of cinemas in Scotland is held by the National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive (formerly the Scottish Screen Archive). <https://www.nls.uk/collections/moving-image-archive/> [accessed 26 April 2024]
Contact the local archives service or local studies library for the place concerned. You should provide the name of the street where the cinema was located. Staff may be able to tell fairly quickly whether they hold a photograph of a particular cinema, but in some cases you may be required to carry out research yourself.
How can I trace the location and history of a particular cinema?
First look at what has already been published, whether in a local history book or on a local history website. Use the information provided but do check the original sources that the author or website compiler used. Ask the local libraries or local archives services if they hold any unpublished lists of local cinemas.
The National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive (formerly the Scottish Screen Archive) holds the records of many cinema companies. These contain information about individual cinemas. <https://www.nls.uk/collections/moving-image-archive/> [accessed 26 April 2024]
If you don’t know where the cinema was located, look at any available old maps for period, especially Ordnance Survey (OS) editions. You can see OS maps up to the 1960s on the National Library of Scotland website and you can usually find more recent OS maps in local libraries.
To find the name of the cinema, check through back-copies of Post Office Directories for the town or county in question. Remember that if the cinema’s owners did not pay for an entry in these directories then the cinema may not appear in the alphabetical or classified sections.
It is possible that the local authority kept a register of licences granted to cinemas and theatres, but if these have not survived, go to the local authority archives service for the area and look at valuation rolls which record the owner, occupiers and purpose of most buildings in each town or village and are more reliable than Post Office Directories. However, checking through these can be time-consuming: you may need to devote several hours to this. Bear in mind that many street names have changed over the last century, especially in cities. You may also be able to find plans of the building in the building standards warrants or dean of guild warrants.