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Agnes Mary Field

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Agnes Mary Field
CBE OBE
Newspaper headshot of a white women with pale skin and dark hair. Her lipstick is also dark.
Agnes Mary Field, from a 1954 newspaper.
Born24 February 1896
Wimbledon, London, England
Died23 December 1968 (1968-12-24) (aged 72)
Worthing, West Sussex, England
Alma materBedford College
Institute of Historical Research (MA)
OccupationFilmmaker

Agnes Mary Field CBE OBE (24 February 1896 – 23 December 1968) was an English film producer and director, particularly associated with documentary, educational, and children's films.

Early life and education

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Agnes Mary Field was born in Wimbledon, Surrey, on 24 February 1896,[1] the second daughter of Evelyn Lucy Daniel and Ernest Field, a solicitor. She attended Surbiton High School and Bedford College, London.[2][3] She earned an master of arts from the Institute of Historical Research with a distinction in Commonwealth history.[4][5]

Career

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Mary Field joined British Instructional Films in 1926, as its education manager. She went on to work for the Gaumont Film Company. In 1928, she took over from F. Percy Smith and writing, directing, and editing the Secrets of Nature , a short black-and-white documentary film series, consisting of 144 films produced by British Instructional Films,[4] with titles including "The Private Life of a Gull", "Plants of the Underworld", and "Mighty Atoms".[5][6] She traveled to the Farne Islands to film birds, and made another film at the London Zoo. The timing of her career meant that she was one of the first British women to be an established, professional film director and producer,[7] and she oversaw the transition to sound in instructional films.[8]

In 1944, she created and became executive producer of the Children's Film Division of J. Arthur Rank,[4] remaining until the division closed in 1950. She worked on children's matinées, undertook advisory work, toured the commonwealth in 1954, and was a consultant for UNESCO's Centre of Films for Children.[4] In 1950, she visited Australia for six weeks, on a lecture tour sponsored by the Victorian Council for Children's Films and Television.[3] She returned to Australian in 1954.[9] In 1956, she wrote an article, "Children's Taste in Films", for the Quarterly of Film Radio and Television.[10] She was billed as "the western world's foremost authority on films and television for children" when she toured Canada for four weeks in 1960.[11][12]

She was made a CBE in 1951.[4] In 1954, she was awarded an OBE for her services to educational and children's film. From 1950, she served on the British Board of Film Censors.[3]

Personal life

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Field was a Soroptimist and a founder member of SI Greater London Club, which was chartered in 1923. In 1950, she became President of the 90,000 strong British arm of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women, succeeding Caroline Haslett in the role.[13] She married Gerald Hankin, a Ministry of Education official in 1944 but was widowed in 1952.[4]

She died on 23 December 1968, aged 72 years, in Worthing.[13]

Publications

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  • Secrets of Nature, Etc. [On the Making of Natural-history Films. With Plates.] (Faber & Faber 1934). Co-authored with Percy John Delf Smith.[14]
  • Good Company: The story of the children’s entertainment movement in Great Britain 1943 - 1950 (Longmans Green, 1952).

References

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  1. ^ Easen, Sarah. "Field, Mary (1896-1968)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  2. ^ "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33121. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ a b c "Mary Field, Pioneer Film-Maker, Here Soon". The Sydney Morning Herald. 8 August 1954. p. 64. Retrieved 2 May 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Uglow, J. (2005). The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 211. ISBN 978-1403934482.
  5. ^ a b Littlefield, Joan (19 January 1936). "English Woman Director Films Unusual Educational Subjects". Dayton Daily News. p. 15. Retrieved 2 May 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "Secrets of Nature", British Pathé.
  7. ^ "Monotony Banned from the School Room". The Age. 16 October 1937. p. 43. Retrieved 2 May 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "Demand for Instructional Films". The Guardian. 30 November 1935. p. 5. Retrieved 1 May 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ Gepp, Kathleen (18 August 1954). "Film Making for Child Audiences". The Age. p. 2. Retrieved 2 May 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ Field, Mary (1956). "Children's Taste in Films". The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television. 11 (1): 14–23. doi:10.2307/1209806. ISSN 1549-0068. JSTOR 1209806.
  11. ^ "Child Film Authority to Tour Canada". Star-Phoenix. 16 March 1960. p. 4. Retrieved 2 May 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "'Good Guys' Must be Under 30!". Edmonton Journal. 7 May 1960. p. 9. Retrieved 2 May 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ a b Broadbent, Lizzie (8 March 2023). "Mary Field (1896-1968)". Women Who Meant Business. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  14. ^ Field, Agnes Mary; Smith, Percy John Delf (1934). Secrets of Nature, Etc. [On the Making of Natural-history Films. With Plates.]. Faber & Faber.
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