Bill Beadman was born in Braidwood in 1918 and was a dominant billiards and snooker player in Canberra for more than 30 years. He was particularly skilful in billiards, winning 19 ACT State billiards championships. Before World War II, Bill was showing great potential, modelling his style on the smooth cueing technique of Canberra sporting identity Jack Edlington, and made his first century billiards break in 1939.
After coming back from the war he resumed playing again and won his first ACT State billiards title in 1948. In those early post war years Bill was invincible in billiards and won all his matches playing in the weekly inter-club competition for Transport, where he was employed as a Commonwealth car driver.
Bill made innumerable century breaks in billiards and two breaks of more than 200, the first being 203 in a Canberra competition match against the highly ranked Arthur Allan. He later improved on that effort with a break of 205. Beadman’s efforts with billiards were matched by his efforts in snooker, winning 14 ACT State snooker titles, giving him a combined total of 33 ACT State billiards and snooker Championships.
On occasions Bill was beaten in snooker, whereas this did not happen in billiards, especially in the early post war years.
Bill played snooker exhibitions against Australian champions Horace Lindrum and Eddie Charlton. He did so well against Charlton that he considered turning professional with Charlton. However at that time snooker professionals were earning only modest salaries and Beadman decided to stay with his more secure job as a Commonwealth car driver. Bill’s final State Billiards title was in 1981, after which he retired because of ill health.
BILLIARDS
Born: 5 March 1918
Deceased: 1 March 2001
Inducted: 1999
Full Member