Edgar Anstey, (born Harold Macfarlane Anstey), was a pioneer of the
British documentary movement during the 1930s. Working as a protégé
of John Grierson at the Empire Marketing
Board Film Unit, Anstey was involved on the innovative documentaries
Uncharted Waters (1933), Eskimo Village (1933) and Granton Trawler (1934).
Sponsored by the Gas Coke and Light Company he co-directed Housing
Problems (1935) with Arthur Elton and later worked on Enough to
Eat? (1936). Away from the documentary scene he teamed up with The Spectator
as a film critic and worked for the BBC during the late-1940s. During
WWII he produced documentaries for the Department of Information, and
afterwards helped form British Transports Films in 1949, where he produced
Journey into Spring (1957) and Terminus (1961).
