While watching this video of workers at the Pendlebury Colliery, North England in 1901, I noticed a little scuffle in the last few seconds. Two workers make a few animated gestures with their arms, one raising his hat in the air. He then bumps the other with his shoulder as he is walking away. The other man doesn’t respond, so he slaps him in the back of the head and it kicks off. A few punches are exchanged before they clinch and stumble into the crowd. A bystander kicks an item they have dropped. The video cuts forward a short time and they are still punching, then cuts again and the two men are gone. A group of males walk from the left of the frame, perhaps they have just finished breaking it up? We will never know how it ended.
I then realised that this may be the first actual street fight ever recorded on film. Worth noting for that fact alone.