ACTUALITY. Single shot. British officers (Royal Engineers) supervising repair work on a bridge at Frere, spanning the Blaauw Krantz River, South Africa, during the Boer War.

One end of a mangled metal bridge with black workers, white overseers, and some British troops (helmeted but not in full uniform). A team of blacks carry a long girder from right to left across the frame, raising it up a couple of times. Once they are past, the camera pans slightly to the right to show a large stone bridge-support and standing by a few British troops, one wearing a Red Cross armband. Camera pans further right to show more mangled metal (47ft/35mm).

Note: Originally filmed in 68mm. Taken by W.K-L. Dickson on 29 November 1899. Previously thought to be at the Modder or Rhenoster rivers.

Refs. American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, Picture Catalogue, Nov 1902, p 165 (cat. no. 560E, `Military' section). John Barnes, Filming the Boer War (1992), p 191. W.K-L. Dickson, The Biograph in Battle (1901), pp 53-4. Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (1979), p 209 (pbk ed 1992). Palace Theatre programme, 29 January 1900 [uncertain] The War By Biograph, p 17 [illus.]