George E Hill
Family name: Hill
Work area/Craft/Role: Engineer
Industry: Film
Company: Newman Sinclair, Gainsborough, Ardmore
Interview date(s): 16 January 1964
Interviewer(s): Ralph Bond
Production Media: audio
George E Hill talks about Newman & Sinclair, a manufacturer of film cameras whose first models appeared in 1927.
The first model was developed by Arthur Samuel Newman who produced the first camera body from Duralumin, a temperature-resistant, light metal. The first model with a 35-mm objective was user-powered by a removable mechanism. Later models were battery powered. The Newman & Sinclair cameras allowed frame rates between 10 and 24 frames per second.
The camera was considered easily handled, due to its relative light weight, and robustness, and for this reason it was considered an optimal camera for news reporting and documentary filming.
Well known documentary film makers such as Robert J. Flaherty, Humphrey Jennings, Damien Parer, and Basil Wright used this camera.
Technical adviser in charge of cameras at Gainsborough studios.
There is an article about him in the ACT journal of 1942.
He was born in Islington 1896 and became an apprentice at Newman Sinclair Cameras in 1910 at the age of 14. He started as an all purpose errand boy
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