Museum of Science and Industry

Manchester was quick to embrace photographic technology. Louis Daguerre introduced his photographic process in 1839 and licensed Manchester's first photographic studio two years later. In 1842, John Benjamin Dancer, a leading Manchester scientific instrument maker, took the first known photograph of Manchester.

Dancer went on to devise improved lantern projectors and new photographic techniques. He invented the microphotography process in 1852 and the binocular stereoscopic camera in 1853. Another pioneer, Manchester chemist J. T. Chapman, introduced the first reliable ready-prepared negative plates in about 1880. Thornton-Pickard, formed in 1888, became a successful maker of shutters and reflex cameras.

Soon after its first public film show in 1896, Manchester had more cinemas than anywhere in Britain except London. By 1910, Manchester showman Leon Gould was showing his own films at local fairgrounds. John 'Pop' Blakeley formed Mancunian Films in 1947 to showcase Northern humour. The company's Manchester studio, nicknamed Jollywood, was the only one outside London in the 1950s.