Born in 1889 into of a family of cinema owners and film renters in the North West. Co-founder of Mancunian Films in Manchester, their output distributed through a company called Butchers Films. Blakeley starred many north-country music hall performers in his films and is credited with making
George Formby into a star. His slapstick comedies remained popular throughout the 1940s and into the early 1950s. The studio was acquired by the BBC in 1954 and eventually demolished in 1967.