W. E. Berry Ltd (1888 - 2004)
Dates
- Existence: 1888 - 2004
Biography
The W.E. Berry Ltd printing company was founded by William Edward Berry in the early 1900s after taking over his father’s printing company and splitting with his business partner. The original company had been founded by William Berry in 1888 at 13 Currer Street in Bradford to print advertising posters. Business soon started to specialise in the railway and entertainment sector, specially the circus industry and over time became one of the most significant printers of entertainment posters in the UK.
In the 1920s the company started to print posters for the film industry after W.E. Berry met Fred Martin at Paramount Pictures. This developed into a lucrative partnership with Berry becoming one of only three companies in Britain to specialise in printing large format posters. Successive contracts with Disney and Columbia arrived, turning Berry into one of the leading producers and distributors of film posters in the UK. Some of the most famous posters include Star Wars (1977) and Flash Gordon (1980).
The mid of the twentieth century saw the production of Berry’s most beautiful and sought posters in the entertainment sector and the company continued experiencing success until the end of the late 1990s when it employed around 140 people, including Chief Illustrator Leon Crossley and a team of freelance commercial artists. However, by the early twentieth century Berry’s fortunes started to turn and after heavy financial losses the company went into administration in 2004, ceasing business on the 4th day of February that year.
Found in 6 Collections and/or Records:
Blackpool Tower Circus Posters, c1930 - 1990
Posters for Blackpool Tower Circus including shows by Knie's Circus, Circus Krone, Circus Schumann, Bertram Mills Circus, Robert Brothers Circus and performances by Charlie Cairoli, Doddles, Coco the Clown, The Rosaires, Lilly Yokoi, Alfred Court, Vojtek Trubka, The Great Wallendas and Mary Chipperfield among others.
Christopher Palmer Collection
Circus programmes and VHS tapes from Billy Smart’s Circus and Chipperfields’s Circus collected during the 1970s and early 1980s by the TV producer, Christopher John Palmer. There are also a number of promotional photographs of artistes and other ephemera related to the circus.
Circus Friends Association Collection
This collection consists of a large library of books and journals, as well as archival material including posters, programmes, photographs, films, handbills, research material, scrapbooks, original artwork and many other items of ephemera relating to British, Irish and European circuses
Posters, c1800 - 2011
A wide range of British and international circus and menagerie posters ranging from the 19th to the 21st century including Astley's Amphitheatre, Pablo Fanque, Polito, Bostock and Wombwell, Ducrow, Cooke, Hengler, Sanger, Smart, Gerry Cottle, Bertram Mills, Chipperfield's, Robert Brothers, Fossett, Blackpool Tower, Billy Russell, Belle Vue, Great Yarmouth Hippodrome, Austen Brothers and many more.
Programmes, c1800 - 2019
A collection of mainly British and international circus programmes and some variety and music hall programmes containing circus acts.
Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian Circus Posters, c1800 - 1930
Early circus and menagerie posters including Polito's menagerie, Astley's Amphitheatre and Pablo Fanque's, Sanger's, Powell's, Ducrow's, Cooke's and Hengler's circuses among others.
Filtered By
- Subject: Strong men X
Additional filters:
- Type
- Archival Object 4
- Collection 2
- Subject
- Art 1
- Boxing 1
- Circus workers 1
- Comedians 5
- Contortionists 5
- Dance 4
- Diving 1
- Dwarfs (Persons) 4
- Escape artists 3
- Fairs 2
- Fakirs 2
- Family 1
- Fire eating 3
- Freak shows 2
- Gymnasts 4
- Human cannonball 1
- Knife throwing 2
- Magic 2
- Menageries 3
- Minstrel shows 2
- Motion pictures 4
- Music 1
- Music-halls 1
- Musical performances 3
- Pantomime 4
- Puppets 1
- Ringmaster 3
- Ringmistress 1
- Showman 3
- Showwoman 2
- Singing 4
- Skating 5
- Sword swallowing 1
- Trampolinists 1
- Transport 1
- Variety 5
- Ventriloquists 2
- Wall of death 1
- War 4
- Wild west 4
- World War, 1939-1945 2
- Wrestling 3
- Zoos 1 + ∧ less