Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Beeching, Henry Charles
BEECHING, HENRY CHARLES (1859-1919), dean of Norwich, man of letters, was born 15 May 1859 at 16 Dorset Street, London. He was the second son of James Plumer George Beeching, and came of a Sussex family of shipowners and bankers who had long held land at Bexhill. His mother was Harriet, daughter of William Skaife, of Knaresborough, whose family had lived for many generations near Pately Bridge, Yorkshire. In 1875 he went to the City of London School, where he came under the influence of Dr. Edwin A. Abbott, for whom he always retained an affectionate regard. In October 1878 he went up to Balliol College, Oxford, as an open exhibitioner, and, soon became one of a circle which included J.W. Mackail, J. St. Loe Strachey, (Sir) Clinton Dawkins, (Sir) Rennell Rodd, and (Sir) Sidney Lee. His enthusiasm for English literature, and more especially for English poetry, was stimulated by his Balliol friendships, and his own gift for writing verse was early apparent. He contributed to an undergraduate periodical called Waifs and Strays, and in 1879 published, in conjunction with Mackail and J. B. B. Nichols, a small volume of poems entitled Mensae Secundae; this was followed later by Love in Idleness (1883) and Love's Looking-glass (1891), both of which were written with the same collaborators. He graduated B.A. in 1883.
In 1882 Beeching was ordained deacon, and became curate of St. Matthew’s, Mossley Hill, Liverpool, where he remained until 1885. In that year he accepted the living of Yattendon, a small village in Berkshire, which he held for fifteen years. He was able to devote much of his time to literary work, particularly to the study of the English poets. In 1895 he published his best-known volume of verse, Love in a Garden and Other Poems. In 1896 he began to contribute anonymously to the Cornhill Magazine, of which his friend St. Loe Strachey was then editor, Pages from a Private Diary; these were published in book-form, also anonymously, in 1898; the second edition (1903) bore the pseudonym ‘Urbanus Sylvan’. In 1900 his edition of Milton was published by the Clarendon Press.
In 1900 Beeching gave up his work as a country clergyman, and became chaplain of Lincoln’s Inn and professor of pastoral theology at King’s College, London. Two years later he was appointed canon of Westminster, a most congenial post for a man of his tastes. He was select preacher at Oxford in 1896-1897 and again in 1912-1913; at Cambridge in 1903, 1909, and 1912; and at Dublin in 1905. In 1906 he published Provincial Letters and other papers, and in 1909 a life of Francis Atterbury. During this London period he also produced several volumes of sermons and lectures, including Religio Laici (1902), The Bible Doctrine of Atonement (1907), and William Shakespeare … a reply to Mr. George Greenwood, M.P. (1908). He also edited two volumes of sermons and lectures by his friend Alfred Ainger [q.v.].
In 1911 Beeching was appointed dean of Norwich. He became keenly interested in the history and services of his cathedral, and took an active part in the life of the city. His health began to fail in 1918, and on 25 February 1919 he died at Norwich from heart failure. His ashes were buried in Norwich Cathedral on 3 March. He married in 1890 Mary, daughter of the Rev. A. J. Plow, and niece of Robert Bridges, afterwards poet laureate, and had three daughters.
Beeching was eminent both as churchman and man of letters. A man of wide sympathies and varied interests, he was beloved and successful alike as country rector, canon of Westminster, and dean of Norwich. As a preacher he showed learning and eloquence. He was a liberal churchman, but no controversialist, and he had a deep love for the ritual and liturgy of the Church of England. He will be best remembered as an essayist and critic of charm and distinction, with a prose style that reveals great delicacy of judgement, sure literary taste, and a rare vein of humour. His own poetry, though slender in volume, is marked by technical skill, by polished wit, and by the verbal dexterity which made his epigrams famous. With his lovable personality, his charm of manner, and his gift of humour, Beeching was a man of many friends, one of whom called him ‘the wisest and wittiest of my Balliol contemporaries’.
A coloured drawing, made by William Strang in 1908, is in the possession of Miss Phyllis Anne Beeching. A small pastel drawing by Arthur Batchelor belongs to Mrs. Beeching, and a drawing by Bowyer Nichols to Mrs. Guest-Williams, of Trowell Rectory, near Nottingham.
[Cornhill Magazine, April 1919; Oxford Magazine, 7 March 1919; The Times, 26 February 1919; Church Times, 28 February 1919; Eastern Daily Press, 26 February and 3 March 1919; Memoir by Sir Sidney Lee and bibliography by G. A. Stephen in Norwich Public Library Readers’ Guide, vol. vii, no. 6, April 1919; private information.]