Beckington’s own journal is published in the Proceedings of the Privy Council, vol. v., edited by N.H. Nicolas (1835); and the other journal in the Official Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton, edited by G. Williams for the Rolls Series (1872), which contains many interesting letters. This latter journal has been translated into English by N.H. Nicolas (1828). See G.G. Perry, “Bishop Beckington and Henry VI.,” in the English Historical Review (1894).
BECKMANN, JOHANN (1739-1811), German scientific author, was born on the 4th of June 1739 at Hoya in Hanover, where his father was postmaster and receiver of taxes. He was educated at Stade and the university of Göttingen. The death of his mother in 1762 having deprived him of his means of support, he went in 1763 on the invitation of the pastor of the Lutheran community, Anton Friedrich Büsching, the founder of the modern historic statistical method of geography, to teach natural history in the Lutheran academy, St Petersburg. This office he relinquished in 1765, and travelled in Denmark and Sweden, where he studied the methods of working the mines, and made the acquaintance of Linnaeus at Upsala. In 1766 he was appointed extraordinary professor of philosophy at Göttingen. There he lectured on political and domestic economy with such success that in 1770 he was appointed ordinary professor. He was in the habit of taking his students into the workshops, that they might acquire a practical as well as a theoretical knowledge of different processes and handicrafts. While thus engaged he determined to trace the history and describe the existing condition of each of the arts and sciences on which he was lecturing, being perhaps incited by the Bibliothecae of Albrecht von Haller. But even Beckmann’s industry and ardour were unable to overtake the amount of study necessary for this task. He therefore confined his attention to several practical arts and trades; and to these labours we owe his Beiträge zur Geschichte der Erfindungen (1780-1805), translated into English as the History of Inventions—a work in which he relates the origin, history and recent condition of the various machines, utensils, &c., employed in trade and for domestic purposes. This work entitles Beckmann to be regarded as the founder of scientific technology, a term which he was the first to use in 1772. In 1772 Beckmann was elected a member of the Royal Society of Göttingen, and he contributed valuable scientific dissertations to its proceedings until 1783, when he withdrew from all further share in its work. He died on the 3rd of February 1811. Other important works of Beckmann are Entwurf einer allgemeinen Technologie (1806); Anleitung zur Handelswissenschaft (1789); Vorbereitung zur Warenkunde (1795-1800); Beiträge zur Ökonomie, Technologie, Polizei- und, Kameralwissenschaft (1777-1791).
BECKWITH, JAMES CARROLL (1852- ), American portrait-painter, was born at Hannibal, Missouri, on the 23rd of September 1852. He studied in the National Academy of Design, New York City, of which he afterwards became a member, and in Paris (1873-1878) under Carolus Duran. Returning to the United States in 1878, he gradually became a prominent figure in American art. He took an active part in the formation of the Fine Arts Society, and was president of the National Free Art League, which attempted to secure the repeal of the American duty on works of art. Among his portraits are those of W.M. Chase (1882), of Miss Jordan (1883), of Mark Twain, T.A. Janvier, General Schofield and William Walton. He decorated one of the domes of the Manufactures Building at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.
BECKWITH, SIR THOMAS SYDNEY (1772-1831), British general, was the son of Major-General John Beckwith, who was colonel of the 20th regiment (Lancashire Fusiliers) in the charge at Minden. In 1791 he entered the 71st regiment (then commanded by Colonel David Baird), in which he served in India and elsewhere until 1800, when he obtained a company in Colonel Coote Manningham’s experimental regiment of riflemen, shortly afterwards numbered as the 95th Rifles and now called the Rifle Brigade. In 1802 he was promoted major, and in the following year lieutenant-colonel. Beckwith was one of the favourite officers of Sir John Moore in the famous camp of Shorncliffe, and aided that general in the training of the troops which afterwards became the Light Division. In 1806 he served in the expedition to Hanover, and in 1807 in that which captured Copenhagen. In 1806 the Rifles were present at Vimeira, and in the campaign of Sir John Moore they bore the brunt of the rearguard fighting. Beckwith took part in the great march of Craufurd to the field of Talavera, in the advanced guard fights on the Coa in 1810 and in the campaign in Portugal. On the formation of the Light Division he was given a brigade command in it. After the brilliant action of Sabugal, Beckwith had to retire for a time from active service, but the Rifles and the brigade he had trained and commanded added to their fame on every subsequent battlefield. In 1812 he went to Canada as assistant quartermaster-general, and he took part in the war against the United States. In 1814 he became major-general, and in 1815 was created K.C.B. In 1827 he was made colonel commandant of the Rifle Brigade. He went to India as commander-in-chief at Bombay in 1829, and was promoted lieutenant-general in the following year. He died on the 15th of January 1831 at Mahableshwar.
His elder brother, Sir George Beckwith (1753-1823), distinguished himself as a regimental officer in the American War of Independence, and served subsequently in high administrative posts and in numerous successful military operations in the West Indies during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. He was made a K.B. for his capture of Martinique in 1809, and attained the full rank of general in 1814. Sir George Beckwith commanded the forces in Ireland, 1816-1820. He died in London on the 20th of March 1823.
Their nephew, Major-General John Charles Beckwith (1789-1862), joined the 50th regiment in 1803, exchanging in 1804 into the 95th Rifles, with which regiment he served in the Peninsular campaigns of 1808-10. He was subsequently employed on the staff of the Light Division, and he was repeatedly mentioned in despatches, becoming in 1814 a brevet-major, and after the battle of Waterloo (in which he lost a leg) lieutenant-colonel and C.B. In 1820 he left active service. Seven years later an accident drew his attention to the Waldenses, whose past history and present condition influenced him so strongly that he settled in the valleys of Piedmont. The rest of his life was spent in the self-imposed task of educating the Waldenses, for whom he established and maintained a large number of schools, and in reviving the earlier faith of the people. In 1848 King Charles Albert made him a knight of the order of St Maurice and St Lazarus. He was promoted colonel in the British army in 1837 and major-general in 1846. He died on the 19th of July 1862 at La Torre, Piedmont.