Beginning his career as a travelling entertainer, Haggar, whose large family formed his theatre company, later bought a Bioscope show and earned his money in the fairgrounds of south Wales.

[1] An accomplished musician, Haggar left home at the age of eighteen and joined a troupe of travelling players, working as a stage carpenter.

[4] Moving the theatre deeper into industrial Wales, Haggar found an audience that brought him an unprecedented level of prosperity.

[1] In 1902 Haggar began making narrative shorts, and these found distribution from Gaumont, Charles Urban and the Warwick Trading Company.

The film includes panning shots, actors running past camera conducted with a sense of urgency and speed.

[6] Haggar handed over all his negatives to his films in return for retaining the rights in south Wales, and he is believed to have lost out financially in this relationship when the likes of his 1905 The Salmon Poachers – A Midnight Melee sold 480 prints at £6.17s apiece for Gaumont.

While his 1905 melodrama, The Life of Charles Peace, the central character, based on the notorious English burglar and murderer, makes the viewer complicit in his crimes by approaching the camera and thumbing his nose after sending a police officer in the wrong direction.

[3] The film starred much of Haggars family with his son Walter taking the central character role, while his wife played Peace's mother.

In total, Haggar made more than 30 documented films, though only four are known to exist today: Desperate Poaching Affray, The Life of Charles Peace, The Sheepstealer (1908) and Revenge!

[2] He was elected to the Merthyr Board of Guardians of the Poor in 1913 and the next year he became a councillor to Aberdare Urban District Council.

[2] With a film career of over 25 years behind him Haggar died on 4 February 1925 at 'Maer-yr-haf' in Elm Grove, Aberdare, the home of his son Walter.