[2] In 1886, he moved his chemist's and photographic business to 144 Church Road, Hove,[4] where he took up residence with his family, and formed friendships with fellow pioneers Esmé Collings, William Friese-Greene and George Albert Smith, among others, for whom he supplied chemicals and processed films.

[1][4] In 1898, he moved his chemist's and photographic business to 55 Western Road, Hove, where he and his family took up residence, and issued his first catalogue, which was expanded that year to include, among others, trick film The Clown Barber and comedy Washing the Sweep.

The latter series featured the premiere of Williamson's innovative Attack on a China Mission, which included a four shots that developed the narrative and a reverse-angle cut giving the audience an alternate perspective, as well as winter sports scenes filmed in Switzerland by mountaineer and traveller Aubrey Le Blond, described as the first identifiable female filmmaker.

[4] Williamson, as shown by the 1901 census in which he is described as a "chemist & druggist but engaged in photography only",[This quote needs a citation] had entered a period of dedicated film-making during which he produced trick film The Big Swallow, with its innovative use of extreme close-up, as well as dramas Fire!

In 1902, he moved his business, now named the Williamson Kinematographic Company, to a new location at Cambridge Grove off Wilbury Villas, Hove, where he and his family took up residence at Rose Cottage and a glasshouse film studio and a photographic atelier, designed by W.B.

[1] Williamson himself, like fellow pioneer Robert W. Paul, had become disillusioned with the increasingly industrialised[clarification needed] nature of the business and left production first to Jack Chart and later to David Aylott, while he concentrated on film processing and distribution, as well as working with his son Colin, an engineer, on a new venture manufacturing and selling equipment.

[4] In 1996, as part of the celebration of the centenary of film, the work of Williamson and the other Brighton pioneers was commemorated by the unveiling of plaques, including one on Williamson's former premises in Church Street, an exhibition held at the University of Brighton Gallery and Hove Museum and the publication of Hove Pioneers and the Arrival of Cinema by John Barnes, Ine van Dooren and Frank Gray.