Agnes Mary FieldCBEOBE (24 February 1896 – 23 December 1968) was an English film producer and director, particularly associated with documentary, educational, and children's films.
Mary Field joined British Instructional Films in 1926, as its education manager. She went on to work for the Gaumont Film Company. In 1928, she took over from F. Percy Smith and writing, directing, and editing the Secrets of Nature , a short black-and-white documentary film series, consisting of 144 films produced by British Instructional Films,[4] with titles including "The Private Life of a Gull", "Plants of the Underworld", and "Mighty Atoms".[5][6] She traveled to the Farne Islands to film birds, and made another film at the London Zoo. The timing of her career meant that she was one of the first British women to be an established, professional film director and producer,[7] and she oversaw the transition to sound in instructional films.[8]
In 1944, she created and became executive producer of the Children's Film Division of J. Arthur Rank,[4] remaining until the division closed in 1950. She worked on children's matinées, undertook advisory work, toured the commonwealth in 1954, and was a consultant for UNESCO's Centre of Films for Children.[4] In 1950, she visited Australia for six weeks, on a lecture tour sponsored by the Victorian Council for Children's Films and Television.[3] She returned to Australian in 1954.[9] In 1956, she wrote an article, "Children's Taste in Films", for the Quarterly of Film Radio and Television.[10] She was billed as "the western world's foremost authority on films and television for children" when she toured Canada for four weeks in 1960.[11][12]
She was made a CBE in 1951.[4] In 1954, she was awarded an OBE for her services to educational and children's film. From 1950, she served on the British Board of Film Censors.[3]
