Gaumont-British Picture Corporation

Gaumont-British was founded in 1898 as the British subsidiary of the French film studio Gaumont.

In 1910, Gaumont Graphic Studios were at Shepherds Bush, in London.

In 1914, the Gaumont-British film studios were opened, then completely rebuilt for sound, re-opening on 29 June 1932.

"Gaumont Graphic newsreels were exhibited as part of larger cinema programmes from 1910 to 1932, when Gaumont Sound News was launched (superseded by Gaumont British News in 1934)."

Gaumont's British subsidiary became independent of its French parent in 1922 when Isidore Ostrer acquired control of Gaumont-British. In 1927 the Ideal Film Company, a leading silent film maker, merged with Gaumont. Gaumont-British Pictures Corporation was formed in 1927.

The company's Lime Grove Studios was used for film productions, including Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of The 39 Steps (1935), while its Islington Studios made Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938). In the 1930s, the company employed 16,000 people. During her first attempt in 1933 at circumnavigation of the UK, kayaker Fridel Meyer gave lectures about her journey at various landing places, for the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation.

Michael Balcon later reflected that although the years of 1934 and 1935 produced films such as The Thirty-Nine Steps and Tudor Rose "on the whole our films in those years were not as good as they should have been, and they were costing more than they should have." He felt it might have been different if the studio "had a sufficiently powerful and effective global selling organisation" and also that the decision to import American stars and directors was not worth it, artistically or financially.

In the United States, Gaumont-British had its own distribution operation for its films until December 1938, when it outsourced distribution to 20th Century Fox. Key figures at the studio included Edward Black.

In 1940, Gaumont-British acquired Cinema-Television. In 1945, Cinema-Television acquired Bush Radio.

In 1948, Gaumont-British acquired British Optical and Precision Engineers (BOPE), which in turn, acquired Taylor, Taylor & Hobson, Kalee and British Acoustic Films. In 1956, BOPE was renamed Rank Precision Industries.

G.B.-Kershaw and G.B.-Kalee

In 1888 Abram Kershaw established a business in Leeds making photographic items, including lanterns and projection equipment. Kershaw produced cinema projectors under the Kalee trade name (from the initials of Kershaw, A, Leeds) from the 1910s. Later, the company became part of Amalgamated Photographic Manufacturers, forming the Kershaw-Soho Ltd group.

The brand Kalee continued to be used until the Kershaw group was acquired by Gaumont British to become G.B.-Kalee Ltd. Both GB-Kershaw and GB-Kalee were used as brand names for a range of 8-mm and 16-mm cine-cameras, movie projectors, slide projectors and still cameras. G.B.-Kalee was also the distributor in the United Kingdom for the 16-mm and 35-mm Arriflex cinema cameras, as well as a range of professional cinema projectors and sound equipment under the brand name Gaumont-Kalee.