Bill Fuller was among a wave of Irish immigrants heading to the building sites of England in the 1930s with no more than the price of a cup of tea in his pocket. But by the time he died, he had set up the Electric Ballroom, in Camden Town, and owned a string of nightclubs, a Nevada mine and a successful building company.

Fuller made his name as the proprietor of the Electric Ballroom, the North London music venue that played a crucial role in giving the area its trendy reputation for up-andcoming bands. Those who have appeared on the stage include Sid Vicious, Iggy Pop, the Clash, Joy Division, Madness, U2, the Smiths, Nick Cave, the Pogues, Public Enemy and Oasis, while Chas & Dave sell the place out each year for their Christmas party.

William Fuller was born in Finogue, Co Kerry, in 1917, where among his schoolfriends was Johnny Byrne, whose career as a property developer made him, in later years, a fierce rival. After emigrating to London as a teenager, Fuller ran a building contracting firm, settled into Camden Town’s Irish community and became a well-known amateur boxer.

The ballroom was then known as the Buffalo Club, and was run by Ginger Maloney. It had a rough reputation. Trouble would start between groups of Irish immigrants, and after one dust-up too many, police officers from Kentish Town told the owners that it had to close.

Fuller, now 20 and already running a club called St Patrick’s in West London, stepped in. When he heard that the gates of the Buffalo had been padlocked he saw a chance to get a toehold in the heart of London’s Irish community. Interviewed in 1997, he said: “I went to the chief of police in Holmes Road. He was Inspector Harris and a hard man to bargain with, but I said: ‘I’ll make a deal with you: if you ever get called in to sort out a fight here, I’ll put the lock back on the gate’.”

In the 1940s the Blitz gave Fuller the chance to expand. A German bomb demolished the Tube station next door in 1941 and much of the club’s terrace had to come down. He bought the site and, using labourers working for his company, built a larger dance floor.

The club became a magnet for Irish music. With the venue doing well and his various construction businesses also flourishing, Fuller was looking for new opportunities. As well as the Buffalo in London, he would later take on the Apollo in Manchester, and venues across Ireland. In Dublin his management of the Crystal and the Town and Country clubs made them the city’s most successful venues.

In the 1950s he travelled to New York. He bought the City Centre venue in Manhattan which, like the Buffalo in Camden Town, became a haven for Irish immigrants. In the late 1960s Fuller headed farther west, to California and Nevada. He was attracted to Las Vegas — apart from the lure of its nightlife, he saw it as a place where he could make his mark. With Brendan Bowyer and the Big Eight he established the tradition of Irish showbands spending a season in the town. But changing the face of Glitter Gulch was not enough. Like the settlers who had built the city 100 years before, Fuller saw opportunities in the surrounding hills and he became involved in the mining industry.

By then, he had bought the famous rock venues the Fillmore East in New York and the Fillmore West in San Francisco, as well as swaths of property in the American-Irish centres of Chicago, Boston and New York.

His fame in Las Vegas increased when he became involved in a murder case. When Ted Binion, a casino owner, was found dead at his rambling mansion in 1988 officers believed that the businessman, who had a history of drug addiction, had taken an overdose of heroin. But eyes fell on his stripper girlfriend Sandy Murphy and her secret lover, Rick Tabish. They were both convicted of murder, but Fuller, after following their plight on the news, felt that they had been treated unfairly. He provided the legal fees for an appeal and their bail money. Their conviction was eventually overturned in 2004.

In 1978 the Buffalo Club reopened as the Electric Ballroom. Among those who performed in the early years were the leading lights of the punk movement including the Sex Pistols and the Clash as well as Public Enemy and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Fuller also owned the Astoria in Plymouth Grove, Manchester, where the parents of Noel and Liam Gallagher — the Oasis brothers — first met.

Fuller never forgot his Irish roots. U2 were regulars at the Electric Ballroom and the Pogues used it as a rehearsal space. Fuller flew in from the United States to watch them work, and when they were done, he cooked them steak with potatoes and cabbage in the upstairs kitchen.

In the past five years the Electric Ballroom, now run by his daughter Kate, has been threatened by the wreckers ball as Transport for London eyes up the site as part of a development of Camden Town Tube station. Fuller vowed to fight the plans, and his family has said that it will continue the battle to save the venue.

He is survived by four daughters and two sons.

William Fuller, businessman, nightclub owner and mining entrepreneur, was born on May 6, 1917. He died on July 28, 2008, aged 91