It consisted initially of five musicians, lecturers and projectionists which toured, showing slides and films, religious topics on Sunday and secular entertainments at other times. Additional Biorama companies were soon formed and toured independently of each other.

The group also shot a prodigious number of films of towns and cities they visited Perry developed ingenious equipment that allowed film to be developed whilst on tour, enabling film shot that day to be shown that night!

As early as January 1900, The Salvation Army soon found itself the country’s leading film production, distribution and exhibition organisation, accepting commissions from commercial and government organisations.
The departure for South Africa of Victoria’s Second Boer War Contingent was one such assignment.

In 1901 The Salvation Army was registered as Australia’s first filmaking company ‘The Australian Kinematograhic Company’. Barely three months after the premiere of Soldiers of the Cross, the New South Wales Government commissioned Perry and his Limelighters to record the birth of our nation.

The filming of the royal visit of the Duke and Duchess of York was commissioned by The Victorian Government in conjunction with the opening of the first Federal Parliament. The actual first sitting of the parliament couldn’t be shot owing to the inadequate lighting within the Exhibition Buildings. Other commissions accepted by The Salvation Army included the visit of the American ‘Great White Fleet’.

These films are regarded as Australia’s first feature-length documentaries.

Herbert and Cornelie Booth resigned from The Salvation Army in 1901 and bought the essential elements of Soldiers of the Cross for half the production cost. Booth later exhibited it in the USA and other parts of the world.

Searches around the world have failed to recover the original film segments, however the slides, obtained from Herbert Booth’s son, are in the archives of ScreenSound Australia in Canberra.