Allan Richard Williams (21 February 1930 – 30 December 2016) was a British businessman and promoter who was the original booking agent and first manager of the Beatles. He personally drove the van to take the young band to Hamburg, Germany, in 1960, where they gained the vital show business experience that led to their emergence on the world stage. Williams was also a promoter and agent of a number of other Liverpool rock acts, helping stoke the Merseybeat boom of the early 1960s. Ancestry and early life Williams was born in Knowsley Road, Bootle. His father was Richard Edward Williams, a local council building inspector and dance promoter, and his mother was Annie Cheetham; Williams traced part of his ancestry back to Owen Williams (Owain Gwyrfai), a Caernarfonshire millwright, poet and pioneer lexicographer in the Welsh language. His mother died when he was very young and his father remarried to Millie Twigg, the family living in Litherland and being completed by Williams's half-sister Olwyn (b. 1937) and half-brother Graham (b. 1938). In his mid-teens he left home to sing with Joe Loss in the Isle of Man. Later he sang with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and even tried to sell Blackpool rock in Spain. In 1955, Williams married Beryl, a school teacher born in Liverpool to Chinese immigrants. The Williams' mixed-race marriage subjected them to verbal abuse from locals. Early business ventures Nightclubs In 1958 Williams was inspired by London's 2i's Coffee Bar and leased a former watch-repair shop at 21–23 Slater Street, Liverpool, which he converted into a coffee bar. With "the Jac's" proximity to Liverpool Art College and a local art supplies shop, the venue became popular with the city's young beatniks and art students. Williams asked students Stuart Sutcliffe and Rod Murray to paint murals in the club's basement, and their classmate, John Lennon, began attending regularly (as did Paul McCartney and George Harrison, though less frequently). Williams offered musical entertainment at the club, such as Lord Woodbine's Royal Caribbean Steel Band and, later, local rock and roll bands like Cass and the Cassanovas. In 1960, Williams took on a number of additional projects, such as backing Lord Woodbine's strip club in Liverpool, the Cabaret Artists Social Club. He and Woodbine traveled to Hamburg, Germany in late January 1960, where they became acquainted with Bruno Koschmider, owner of the Kaiserkeller Club. By coincidence, Williams and