O'Beirne Collection
Scope and Contents
Amateur Super8 cine reels filmed by Thomas O’Beirne, black and white and colour photographs and slides, circus and theatre posters, a watercolour and a small amount of other ephemera.
Dates
- Creation: 1950 - 1975
Creator
- O'Beirne, Thomas, 1910 - 1975 (Circus Enthusiast) (Person)
- Knight, Laura, Dame, 1877 - 1970 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Items are available to view by appointment in the NFCA reading room
Conditions Governing Use
Copies may be supplied or produced at the discretion of National Fairground and Circus Archive, subject to copyright law and condition of the material
Biographical / Historical
Thomas O’Beirne (1910-1975) was born in Glasgow. He was a mechanical engineer by trade, owning and running A. Cockburn & Co., a safety valve company.
His personal interests and passions included writing, public speaking, film making, theatre, music, book collecting, magic and circus, to name a few and developed an interest in collecting circus memorabilia, books, posters and the occasional artwork. Tom also wrote two books; one on Hengler’s Circus and one on the Panopticon, these were never published as Tom died before he could make it happen, but the manuscripts can be found at the Mitchell Library in his native Glasgow.
Tom was an avid circus goer and travelled around Great Britain and Ireland visiting shows with his family and took photographs and film of performers. Tom was a member of the Circus Friends Association.
Extent
3 Box(es) (2 Super8 cine reels, 76 photographs and slides, 82 posters and 1 framed watercolour)
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement
Catalogued according to type
Subject
- Ling Soo, Chung, 1861 - 1918 (Person)
Cultural context
Occupation
Topical
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Arantza Barrutia
- Date
- 24 May 2017
- Description rules
- International Standard for Archival Description - General
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the National Fairground and Circus Archive Repository
The University of Sheffield
Western Bank
Sheffield South Yorkshire S10 2TN United Kingdom
0114 222 7231
lib-special@sheffield.ac.uk