Film of Wilfred Bennett’s rooftop magic show

Wilfred Bennett was a prominent member of the Mahatma Society and an experienced magician well known for managing the Wizard’s Den in Moorfields, Liverpool. Everyone called him Wilf. For some time he worked with the Davenport family, becoming a good friend who often stayed at the family home in Kent. According to Wyn Davenport, this film was shot on the roof of Davenports’ 15 New Oxford Street shop in London in the 1930s. The trick nature of the film would have appealed to Wilf, for whom photography was a hobby, as well as to George (Gilly) Davenport who was also interested in photography.