Claude Hamilton Verity: The Yorkshire inventor who created 'talkies' years before Warner Bros

Now, the unlikely hero takes centre-stage as an investigation by local groups plays out his pivotal role.

The Harrogate Civic and Film Societies, together uncovering the world first, have put together an exhibition on Claude’s life and work with a plaque to be unveiled.

“His contribution was very much a “small cog” in this big machine,” said local historian Terry-Mike Williams. "I still think he deserves credit for what he achieved.

“He did it all in secret, and then demonstrated it to the world from Harrogate's Royal Hall. Had he had more support, more money, who knows how far he could have gone with this.”

The Jazz Singer, produced by Warner Bros in 1927, is widely regarded as the world's first 'talking picture', putting words to what had always been silent film.

But Claude Verity, in 1921, was already showing his own. Research shows he played two complete talking pictures to a “rapt” audience, more than six years before.

The Leeds hardware merchant had a passion for inventing, with patents for stoves, revolving doors and electric radiators – even “an apparatus for the inhalation of medicated vapours”.

It is for his work on the synchronisation of sound with film that he is best remembered.

In the years during and after the First World War he had struggled with a problem that had baffled many others before him: how to make moving pictures “talk”.

He experimented in secret in a workshop at the back of his house in East Park Road. When at last he was ready, audiences watched two silent films where the actors actually spoke.

The demonstration took place on April 28, 1921. To Harrogate Civic Society and the Harrogate Film Society, investigating his legacy, this is a “remarkable achievement”.

An exhibition now opens, entitled The Man who gave us the Talkies. Mr Williams, who has crafted the exhibition, said it has proved a "steep learning curve".

Mr Williams, a former teacher and head of history, said Claude's invention worked by projecting sound from behind the screen – and the images from the other end of the room.

“The idea was to combine these moving pictures and sound to make the movies we know as “talkies”,” he said. “He developed that to a fraction of a second. Unfortunately, Claude ran into money problems as the idea came to Warner Bros in California.

“Even though it's such a small detail in the wider story of film, I think it is interesting. If he had the same money and opportunity – who knows what he could have achieved."

The exhibition was supported by Claude's descendent, Richard Verity of estate agents Verity Frearson. For more visit harrogatecivicsociety.org.