AustLit

In 1909 Edward and Dan Carroll merged their Brisbane-based interests with George H. Birch. At the time Birch was proprietor of the Rockhampton-based British Biograph Company, which showed out of the town's Theatre Royal. The new partnership also established a permanent base of operations in Charters Towers, taking over the lease of the Olympia Theatre. By 1912 Birch and Carroll controlled most of the film exhibition halls in the major centres along the Queensland coastline. At the same time, they maintained an active interest in variety theatre. The British Bioscope Company, for example, employed vaudeville artists on an almost weekly basis between December 1909 and December 1913. An advertisement in Australian Variety in 1913, provides further evidence of the company's strong connection with vaudeville: 'Birch and Carroll (Queensland). Theatrical and Picture managers, Playing Pictures and vaudeville in all the Principal Centres from Toowoomba to Charters Towers. Tours of legitimate companies managed over this route appearing in all the principal theatres of which we have the booking control' (15 October 1913, n. pag.). By then, vaudeville managers such as Ted Holland and Brennan-Fuller had also begun leasing their acts to Birch and Carroll, rather than undertaking the tours themselves.

On 19 October 1912 Birch and Carroll amalgamated their picture operations at the Olympia Theatre, Charters Towers with T. V. Coyle, who was then the lessee of the Theatre Royal. This was the first joint venture between the three men whose company would become synonymous with Queensland film exhibition. It was not until 1923, however, that Birch, Carroll and Coyle was formalised as a limited company. This was undertaken so that the organisation could better control and modernise what had by then become an extensive theatre and cinema circuit in northern and coastal Queensland.

Following George Birch's death in 1917 his widow Mary continued to run his business activities, particularly those located in the Rockhampton region. Prior to this she had a played a major role in her husband's various business ventures, including co-managing their hotels. The inclusion of the Birch name in the formation of Birch, Carroll and Coyle Ltd in 1923 was therefore as much an acknowledgement of her involvement in the continued success of the Birch-Carroll firm as her husband's.

[Source: Australian Variety Theatre Archive]