Burgoyne, Francis James Powell (‘Frank’) (1881–1956), librarian, was born 21 February 1881 at 22 Rosedale Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the son of Francis Thomas Burgoyne, librarian, and Mary Ann Burgoyne (née Powell). Educated at the City of London School and King's College, London, he worked in libraries from the age of seventeen, and by 1905 held the post of chief senior assistant librarian at Battersea Public Library. He also wrote a number of papers on bibliographical subjects and was sub-editor of the Library Record.
After moving to Belfast in May 1905 he took over the running of the Linen Hall library, where during the next fifty-one years he introduced numerous innovations and modernisations. In the first years of his tenure he oversaw the completion of the classification of the reference section (1907) and the creation of a card catalogue of all the stock (1914), and in 1917 published his Catalogue of books in the Irish section. While he was librarian the Linen Hall received several major book collections, among them those of Lavens M. Ewart (1908), R. R. Belshaw (1913), and R. S. Lepper (1953), and the manuscripts of Henry Joy (qv) (1938). He was married with a son and daughter. Illness disrupted his work in 1955, and forced him to retire in February 1956. He died at his home in Cherryvalley Park, Belfast, on 24 July 1956 and was buried at Knockbreda cemetery.