Archibald Nettlefold

(1870-1944)

Archibald Nettlefold was born on 1 March 1870, the son of Frederick Nettlefold, who with his elder brother Joseph founded the engineering company NettleFolds & Co, which after Joseph's death merged with iron and steel manufacturers Guest, Keen & Co to become Guest, Keen and Nettlefold, the steel manufacturer and engineering company better known as GKN.

As a young man of independent means, Archibald had at first wanted to take up music, but was apparently advised that his health was not up to it (he later built up a collection of brass wind instruments, some of which he would occasionally play). Instead he studied agriculture and set up as a gentleman farmer, at The Park, Wrotham, Kent.

In June 1899 he married Winifred Ramsden.

He subsequently turned his attention to the entertainment field, producing several plays – some of which he apparently acted in himself – before leasing the Comedy Theatre in 1921, setting up a film production company, Anglia Films, in 1923 and purchasing the bankrupt Hepworth Film Studio at Walton-on-Thames in 1926, renaming it Nettlefold Studios and installing his Anglia Films staff, with Business Manager W A Lott in charge. Subsequently the production company Anglia Films Ltd was shelved in favour of Archibald Nettlefold Productions Ltd.

The animator Anson Dyer, who had been working at the Walton studios, discussed animated film ideas with Archibald Nettlfold, who agreed to produce a series of animated shorts charting the development of the Union Jack and the other flags of the British Empire. The Bioscope (31 March 1927) reported:

     Archibald Nettlefold has commenced work on a very interesting series of six one-reel films entitled "The Story of the Flag." Thew films, of which one is already complete, will be in cartoon form, and Anson Dyer, the artist, is drawing them from sketches and originals lent by the School of Heraldry. Five subjects will deal with British flags and the sixth with foreign flags. The original idea for the series came from W. A. Lott, Mr Nettlefold's business manager.

The "foreign" flags in the sixth chapter were to be the flags of the Empire. This article would suggest that the idea of releasing the series as a feature came later, when the films were nearing completion. On 2 November 1927 The London Daily Chronicle reported:

STORY OF THE FLAG.
Inspiring British Film of Evolution of Empire Standards.
     "The Story of the Flag," a new British film, traces the evolution of the flag from the totem to the Royal Standard, the Union Jack, and the Dominion flags of today.
     It shows the standards of Assyria, Egypt and Rome, and the banners of the Crusaders, from which we get the English cross of St George.
Inspiring British Film of Evolution of Empire Standards.
     It shows the history of the Royal Standard in an extraordinarily fascinating series of pictures, explaining why each change was made.
Inspiring British Film of Evolution of Empire Standards.
     In dealing with the overseas flags, the picture gives some beautiful glimpses of Canada, Australia and South Africa, but the real merit of "The Story of the Flag" is the skill evident in its making and the artistry with which Anson Dyer has drawn the pictures necessary to showing the 56,000 movements contained in a picture which, with research and production, has taken ten months to make.

The six reels were shown as a feature. However, the option still remained to release it as a series of one-reel shorts. Initially it was offered either way, as the review in The Bioscope of 1 December 1927 shows:

"The Story of the Flag"
Offered by: Archibald Nettlefold. Produced by: Anson Dyer. Length: 3,600 feet or in six chapters. Distribution: Not fixed. Type: Interest, cartoon and travel.
     IN BRIEF: The evolution of British and Colonial flags, with many interesting historical details.
     Suitability: For educational establishments.
     The Film: Opening with much information of the antiquarian order, light is thrown on the remarkable alterations which have taken place in the Royal Standard of England, largely owing to dynastic changes, notably on the accession of James I, William III and George I. Naval ensigns and a large number of flags, including those of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, are shown and explained. The film is quite up to date, for the much debated South African flag closes the series.
     The Picture is extremely interesting, but its value and charm would be enhanced by colour.

After its initial release on 3 December 1927, the footage was subsequently re-edited to even up the lengths of the reels, and the series was re-released in July 1928 as six chapters.

In May 1930, at the age of 60, Archibald Nettlfold's eyesight began to fail. Despite the efforts of specialists he became blind, and spent three months recovering from severe illness, but persevered as a producer, saying, "I have four senses left, and that is something to be thankful for. I have had plenty of enjoyment out of my life up till now, and I intend to get heaps more yet." He eventually recovered sight in one eye.

The advent of sound had prompted a complete overhaul of the film studio, and he now concentrated on selecting suitable scripts to put into production. Along with his theatre productions, his farm and the hotel he was having built on Burgh Island, a small island off the coast of Devon that he had bought in 1927, this kept Nettlefold too busy to discuss further animation projects with Dyer, who was given small jobs to keep him busy: production design work, writing and directing a couple of sponsored films (The Story of the Port of London, released 1932, had an opening sequence of animation, in which Old Father Thames recalls the river's history) and providing diagram animation for some educational films.

But Dyer was determined to get back into entertainment cartoon shorts, and in early 1935 Nettlefold gave the matter his attention. The idea that Britain should be producing animated cartoons to equal the American imports had become a common topic and Nettlefold decided to give Dyer the chance. But Dyer's cut-out animation technique was now out of fashion. To be competitive the films would have to be cel-animated, and preferably in colour, as Disney's Silly Symphonies had been since 1932. Nettlefold brought Anglia Films out of mothballs and re-activated it as an animation studio for Anson Dyer to run. They rented office space in fashionable Jermyn Street, and looked around for suitable animation staff. Struck by the vigorous quality of advertising films being made by British Utility Films Ltd, they offered the animation team the chance to work on entertainment cartoons, probably for slightly better wages than they were getting, which was readily accepted. This team consisted of of veteran animator Sid Griffiths and three young Danes, Jørgen Myller, who had run his own animation studio in Copenhagen, and Henning Dahl Mikkelsen and Anker Roepstorff, who had worked with him. Charles Stobbart was hired as cameraman, and the colour system chosen was the two-colour Dunning Colour process.

The Danes had a script for a short cartoon burlesque on Carmen, which they had been unable to finance in Copenhagen, and Dyer put this into production while looking for a British character to build a series around. He hit on the idea of using Stanley Holloway's popular monologue Old Sam (also known as Pick Oop Tha' Musket) and the studio produced a series of Sam Small cartoons, narrated by Holloway and revolving around the character's stubbornness. The animators found that Holloway's lugubrious narration set a rather plodding pace for the animation, which they saw as a problem which they mitigated by making the actions in between the verses more vigorous. The series was quite well received, but failed to make sufficient money, and the studio was forced to turn to advertising films in order to keep going. Nettlefold was advised to cut his losses, and resigned from the board of directors, leaving Dyer in charge of Anglia Films. Dyer started two additional companies to absorb the studio's debts and these companies went into liquidation in 1938. Dyer moved his studio into office space in Riverside Studios, Hammersmith and started a new company, Anson Dyer Studios.

During the war Nettlefold studios, along with several others, was requisitioned by the Ministry of Aircraft Production and was used by the Vickers-Armstrong Aircraft Company, after their Weybridge plant had been bombed in 1940, as an extention of their factory at Kingston-upon-Thames, for storage and parts manufacture.

Archibald Nettlefold died on November 29, 1944, in the Fitzroy House Nursing Home, Fitzroy Square, London, at the age of 74.

Filmography (Animation Only)

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