The Man Who Was Given a Gasworks (1968)

A fascinating insight into the very early years of Beamish Museum, before there even was a Museum! You can see a follow up documentary from 1986, 'The Man Who Made Beamish' here: • The Man Who Made Beami...
In this BBC 'Chronicle' Documentary originally broadcast on 20th April 1968, Frank Atkinson, then director of Bowes Museum, talks to Magnus Magnusson about the doubts and difficulties to be overcome in creating a living museum from scratch.
At that time Frank and his team had a (mere!) collection of more than ten thousand items which reflect life as it was lived in the North-East years ago - the next challenges were finding a suitable place to build the Museum, as well as gaining essential support from the local authorities.
Frank succeeded in his goals with the Museum opening to visitors in 1970, and the result of this dedication and vision can be seen at our thriving Museum today:
www.beamish.org.uk

[@karenroberton3290]

Thank god he saved all these items. It is such a great museum.

[@joest1231]

Good stuff. Would be interested to know how much of the collection made it in to the current museum, and how much is still stored away in different places...

[@richardstraughan9658]

That was fantastic didn,t even know that documentry existed, it is nice to see Frank Atkinson how i best remember him