Sidney Webber Northcote was born on the 26th of October 1884 in Seaforth,
Liverpool
at the time when inventors were just figuring out how to create 'moving
pictures' and the silent film era was about to take off. He must have been watching these developments with interest, because by 1912 he had become an actor and director, best known for The Belle of North Wales (1912), 'The King of Crime' (1914) and 'Verdict of the Sea' (1932).
He married Kathleen Kerr in Manchester in 1921 and they had 3 sons. For approximately six months he appeared as an actor in 7 short romance films shot on location in Wales and Cornwall that he also directed in 1912 for the British and Colonial Kinematograph Company. The British and Colonial Kinematograph Company was formed in 1908 by Albert Henry Bloomfield and John Benjamin McDowell. All of those films were scripted by Harold Brett and featured Dorothy Foster in the starring role. None is known to have survived. He also directed what may have been the first British Western film 'Through Death Valley' in April 1912, in which gold prospectors were rescued from Indians by the US cavalry. He was the director of some14 silent films made between 1912 and 1914. His 1912 films were 'The Witch of the Welsh Mountains' in which a wounded window recovers in time to save the 'wrong girl' from being burned at the stake; 'The Smuggler's Daughter of Anglesea', 'The Belle of Bettwys-y Coed'
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| The Belle of Bettwys-y Coed |
Penmaenmawr was the backdrop of an epic movie in 1912, when he chose this area in North Wales as the location for his silent film, “The Pedlar of Penmaenmawr”. Also in 1912 we have, 'The Fishergirl of Cornwall', 'A Cornish Romance', 'A Tragedy on the Cornish Coast', 'Through Death's Valley' and 'Saved by Fire'.
Following 'Adventures of Pimple' in 1913, the following year he directed 'The King of Crime', ( 'In Paris in 1800 an heiress secretly marries the man framed for the murder of her miserly guardian' ) and the silent film, 'The Troubles of an Heiress' with Vera Northcote as 'The Kandy Kid'. He also worked with other ex-B&C personnel for Harry Lorraine's Daring films with 'Mary the Fishergirl' and 'Detective Daring and the Thames Coiners' both directed by Sidney. 'The Monkey's Paw' in 1915 was from a story by W.W. Jacobs starring John Lawson as John White. White is shown a strange monkey's
paw that will grant three wishes. He steals it from his friend, and
learns that you must be careful what you wish for.
A return to acting in 1927 saw him appear in July as Amiens and as Jacques in a production of Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' in Cardiff, Wales. In 1932 he produced what appears to have been his final film, 'Verdict of the Sea' with a plot of, 'A ship's captain plans on delivering some gems to their rightful owner; a gang of malcontents plots to grab the diamonds for themselves. Thanks to the help of a former doctor, the plot is foiled'.
Through his sister Dessie, he was the great-uncle of British musician and composer Justin Edwards. It is thought he later moved to Golant,
near St Austell, Cornwall where he was a Guest House Proprietor with his wife Kathleen before moving on to live in Hampstead.
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