RT Journal Article
T1 Tinkering with nature: craft, domesticity and female labour in F Percy Smith’s ‘Data’ notebooks (1925–1944)
A1 Max Long
YR 2023
VO 
IS Autumn 2023
K1 cinema
K1 craft
K1 domestic
K1 F Percy Smith
K1 filmmaking
K1 Kate Smith
K1 materiality
K1 media
K1 natural history film
K1 Phyllis Bolté
K1 popular science
K1 scientific film
AB This article examines two notebooks belonging to the scientific filmmaker F Percy Smith, labelled ‘Data A’ and ‘Data B’, which are held at the National Science and Media Museum (NSMM) in Bradford. These notebooks offer valuable insights into Smith’s working process in the last two decades of his life – between 1925 and 1945 – and they detail the wide array of materials, tools and equipment that he used to produce his films. The article suggests some of Smith’s uses for the notebooks, such as noting down locations for collecting specimens or describing how to construct tanks and troughs for filming individual organisms. Using a wide range of supplementary sources, including images, videos and an interactive map, I argue that Smith’s work amounted to a form of scientific ‘craft’, which blended across his experimentation with photographic media and scientific observation. Dismantling the long-held belief that F Percy Smith worked entirely alone, the article uses the notebooks as an opportunity to highlight for the first time the role that two women played in Smith’s studio-laboratory: his wife, Kate Smith, and his assistant, Phyllis Bolté. The notebooks are a key source for understanding the production of natural history films of the interwar period, including the popular Secrets of Nature (1922–1933) series. The article reflects on what media scholars can learn from taking a closer look at the materials and methods used for making films of this kind.
NO For a recent intervention that explores the material conditions of scientific film production and re-use, see the special ‘focus’ section on ‘Research Film’ in Isis (Sattelmacher et al, 2022). 
NO National Science and Media Museum, Bradford, Charles Urban Collection, URB 8/6 
NO A few of these films, which appear not to have been released, have been digitised by the BFI. See https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-berties-cave-1925-online, accessed 12 September 2023, archived at https://perma.cc/6KTY-DP5B. 
NO H Bruce Woolfe, ‘Speech for London Film Society’, 20 January 1946, URB 8/7
NO 1901 England Census, London, Islington, Barnsbury, Holy Trinity, Page 25, Schedule No. 202, Ustonson household
NO 1881 England Census, London, Islington, Barnsbury, Holy Trinity, Page 8, Schedule No. 52, Ustonson household 
NO 1871 England Census, London, Islington, Islington St Mary, Page 18, Schedule No. 104, Ustonson household
NO 1891 England Census, London, Islington, Barnsbury, Holy Trinity, Page 33, Schedule No. 275, Ustonson household
NO England, General Register Office, entry of death for Phyllis Beatrice Penn Bolté, died 15 October, and registered 17 October 1935, a copy of an entry in the certified copy of a Register of Deaths in the Edmonton District, 41–53 Edmonton registration district, entry no. 48, East Tottenham sub-district. 
NO 1911 England Census, Registration District 189, Registration Sub-District 1, Enumeration District 8, Schedule No. 92, Bolté household 
NO Copy of an entry of death for Phyllis Beatrice Penn Bolté. 
NO Principal Probate Registry in the Hight Court of Justice, London, Letters of Administration issued to Minnie Bolté for the estate of Phyllis Beatrice Penn Bolté, 11 December 1935.
NO 1921 England Census, London, Registration District 132, Registration Sub-District 6, Enumeration District 8, Schedule Number 27, Smith household 
NO Principal Probate Registry in the High Court of Justice, London, Letters of Administration for the estate of Kate Louise Smith, 16/06/1959
PB The Science Museum Group
SN 2054-5770
LA eng
DO 10.15180/232009
UL https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/tinkering-with-nature-craft-domesticity-and-female-labour-in-f-percy-smiths-data-notebooks-1925-1944/
WT Science Museum Group Journal
OL 30