[William Darbyshire Home Movie Collection]

Australia, 1960s

Film

The William Darbyshire Home Movie Collection is a collection of home movies originally made on Standard 8mm film, featuring travels in the 1960s.

William (Billy) Darbyshire (1903–1979) was a film enthusiast and traveller who emigrated with his parents from England to Australia in 1911. It may have been this early trip that influenced a young Billy to travel the world later in life and film his travels as he went.

First travelling to Africa for work and to various destinations whilst in service during WWII, Billy would continue to travel after the war throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, the Pacific and North America. It was in this period, during the 1960s, that he purchased an 8mm movie camera which resulted in a collection of films that capture his travels, taking in the sights of the world from Asia to Europe and Africa to the Americas.

The films were originally made using Standard 8mm film. The quality of the film can be a little challenging as it is jumpy, damaged and scratched at times.

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How to watch

Works in this group have been digitised and are viewable by following the links below.

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

creator

William Darbyshire

Production places
Australia
Production dates
1960s

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

B2003480

Sound/audio

Silent

Colour

Colour

Measurements

Approx. 3.5 hours (2600ft 8mm)

Object Types

Moving Image Collection

Materials

13 x 200ft spools of 8mm home movie footage, plus 1 x DVD transfer of an additional spool (14 separate films in total).

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/119189--william-darbyshire-home-movie-collection/ |title=[William Darbyshire Home Movie Collection] |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=5 May 2025 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}