Burly Tom Keneally, a Cockney showman, was almost certain to have been the first to bring permanent cinema to Halstead because in 1913 he opened The Electric Kinema in the old St. Andrew's Hall in Parsonage Street. He stated that he projected real moving pictures, not flashes and lightning (flickers). He was a well known character, who rode around in his donkey cart. If the animal slowed down he would poke it in the rump with a brush that he kept by his side for the purpose of bill-posting. In 1916 he closed his Kinema to become Manager of the Empire, which had been purpose built by the Hewitt family the previous year.
