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Thomas Alcock Beck

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Thomas Alcock Beck
Born(1795-05-31)31 May 1795
Died26 April 1846(1846-04-26) (aged 50)[1]
NationalityEnglish
OccupationAuthor
Known forAuthor of Annales Furnesienses

Thomas Alcock Beck (1795–1846) was an English author known for writing Annales Furnesienses (1844), a history of Furness Abbey, which was dedicated by permission to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and which contained twenty-six steel engravings and several woodcuts.[2] Beck was a long-term resident of Hawkshead in Lancashire, where his parents had lived at The Grove. He used a wheelchair for much of his life, being unable to walk due to a spinal complaint. At one time he had attended Hawkshead Grammar School and he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1814, but left without taking a degree.

Around 1819, he commenced the building of his regency mansion Esthwaite Lodge (subsequently a youth hostel), to the design of George Webster. The grounds were specially laid out with easy gradients for his wheelchair.[3] Besides other antiquarian interests, he also edited Dr. William Close's unfinished work An Itinerary of Furness.

Marriage

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On 25 April 1838 he married Elizabeth Fell of Hawkshead[4] (formerly of Ulverston), having obtained a special license to allow the ceremony to take place within his own home.[5]

References

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  1. ^ "Hawkshead Benefice" (PDF).
  2. ^ a b "Images of Cumbria - Hawkshead Parish".
  3. ^ Thomas Alcock Beck: article in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition available by subscription, retrieved 4 December 2013
  4. ^ "Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerk Project".
  5. ^ Original Hawkshead parish register, deposited with Cumbria Archive Service, Kendal.