At Wessex Film and Sound Archive you can see and hear history, from late Victorian times to the present day, through moving images and sound recordings. The Archive contains over 36,000 film and sound recordings relating to Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, including film and tapes of local TV and radio.
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General Election Slough 1950
A remarkable film showing the Municipal Borough of Slough's preparations for the 1950 General Election.
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Overview
Starting with newspaper headlines announcing the date of the General Election we next see election fliers from four of the main candidates. Then we're out on the campaign trail following the candidates as they speak to the voters. On Polling Day we see people arriving to cast their vote at various polling stations around the town, followed by the votes being counted. The Mayor reads out the result and the winner, Fenner Brockway, addresses crowds outside Slough Town Hall.
Fenner Brockway was an anti-war activist, anti-colonialist and politician. A member of the Independent Labour Party since 1907, he was imprisoned during the First World War for refusing to be conscripted. Brockway finally elected Member of Parliament for Leyton East in 1929. However, the Spanish Civil War marked a change in Fenner Brockway's pacifist views and he supported the struggle against fascism. An active supporter of Britain's role in the Second World War, he later became involved in various anti-colonial movements, being especially critical of Britain's handling of the Mau Mau emergency in Kenya. In 1950 he won the Parliamentary seat of Eton and Slough which he held until 1964.
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