The Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture is a public museum and academic research centre managed by the University of Exeter Library, housing one of Britain's largest public collections of books, prints, artefacts and ephemera relating to the history and prehistory of cinema. It opened to the public in 1997 as part of the British celebrations of the centenary of cinema and is a permanent facility encouraging the ongoing enjoyment, understanding and study of the twentieth century's greatest popular art form and its precursors.
The Centre was founded in commemoration of the film-maker Bill Douglas, one of British cinema's most innovative auteurs of the 1970s and '80s. At the heart of the Centre is the remarkable Bill Douglas and Peter Jewell Collection of approximately 50,000 items. The collection was formed over many years by Bill Douglas and his lifelong friend, Peter Jewell. After Bill died in 1991, Peter donated the Collection to the Exeter University Foundation.
Since the founding donation, several other collections have been gifted to the Centre from key industry figures: Roy Fowler, former writer, producer and director of British film and television, has donated his library of cinema- and broadcasting-related books; British cinematographer Ossie Morris has donated production material and personal papers relating to his films; British film and television director-producer Don Boyd has donated the archive of his production company Boyd Co.; British film producer James Mackay has donated papers relating in particular to the films of Derek Jarman; Gavrik Losey has donated archival material relating to his film productions of the 1970s and '80s; Peter Cotes has given papers relating to his career in film and television production; and British film producer and former head of the London Film School, Bob Dunbar, has donated personal and business papers relating to his career. With this last collection the Centre acquired the London Film School's registers for 1957-75, showing the enrolment of both Bill Douglas and Don Boyd on courses at the School.
The Centre provides a research collection of international stature, illustrating the development of optical recreation and popular entertainment from the late 18th century to Classical Hollywood and the present day. Complementing the University's existing extensive resources for the study of popular culture, the Collection's 18,000 books gives Exeter the country's largest University library on cinema. About 1,000 of the most important items are on display in the Centre's two galleries while the remaining thousands of books, papers and artefacts are all available for study in the Special Collections and Bill Douglas Centre Reading Room.
Special feature: Robert Donat
Web: http://www.centres.ex.ac.uk/bill.douglas/
