Major Francis William Beech CBE (5 June 1885 – 21 February 1969) was a British military officer and politician, who served as the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

Member of Parliament for from 1943 to 1945. Beech was educated at

Long Ashton Long Ashton is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England. It falls within the unitary authority of North Somerset and is one of a number of large villages just outside the boundary of city of Bristol urban area. The parish has a population ...

, outside Bristol, and then attended

Lewis School, Pengam Lewis School, Pengam is a comprehensive school, founded in 1729 in the parish and village of Gelligaer and, later, moved to the nearby village of Gilfach, in the Rhymney Valley in South Wales. It was founded and funded by a legacy of Sir Edward L ...

, in south Wales. He qualified as a solicitor in 1911. Following the outbreak of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Beech took a commission in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

in 1915, and served until 1926 as an officer in the

Royal Army Pay Corps The Royal Army Pay Corps (RAPC) was the corps of the British Army responsible for administering all financial matters. It was amalgamated into the Adjutant General's Corps in 1992. History The first "paymasters" have existed in the army before t ...

, retiring from active service as a major and staff paymaster. In 1937 he was elected as one of two councillors for Woolwich West to the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

, as a

Municipal Reform Party The Municipal Reform Party was a local party allied to the parliamentary Conservative Party in the County of London. The party contested elections to both the London County Council and metropolitan borough councils of the county from 1906 to 1945 ...

candidate, and remained in office for the next nine years. In November 1943 he was also elected to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

for the same constituency, representing the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

; he succeeded Sir

Kingsley Wood Sir Howard Kingsley Wood (19 August 1881 – 21 September 1943) was a British Conservative politician. The son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, he qualified as a solicitor, and successfully specialised in industrial insurance. He became a membe ...

, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had died in office. Due to the war-time

electoral truce The war-time electoral pact was an electoral pact established by the member parties of the UK coalition governments in the First World War, and re-established in the Second World War. Under the pact, in the event of a by-election only the party whi ...

, the

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

was not contested by the Labour or Liberal parties, and Beech won a clear majority over an

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

candidate and another independent. Beech contested the seat at the

1945 general election The following elections occurred in the year 1945. Africa * 1945 South-West African legislative election Asia * 1945 Indian general election Australia * 1945 Fremantle by-election Europe * 1945 Albanian parliamentary election * 1945 Bulgaria ...

, but was defeated by the Labour candidate

Henry Berry Henry Berry, (1719 in England – 1812) was Liverpool's second dock engineer succeeding Thomas Steers and being succeeded by Thomas Morris. Berry Street in Liverpool may be named after Berry who lived in a house at the junction with Duke Street ...

. In 1946, he was also defeated for re-election to the London County Council, with both Woolwich West seats being won by Labour. However, Beech returned to the Council in the 1949 election (this time as a Conservative, the "Municipal Reform" label having been dropped), and served until 1955. From 1952 to 1953 he was Deputy Chairman of the council. After leaving the council, he served as Mayor of Woolwich from 1955 to 1956; he had previously been made a Freeman of the borough as well as of the City of London. He also served as a

Justice of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

for London. Beech was married twice; first to Florence Jenkins (married 1914; died 1963), with whom he had one daughter; and secondly, after Florence's death, to Phyllis Cooper (married 1963).

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Beech, Francis 1885 births 1969 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies People educated at Lewis School, Pengam UK MPs 1935–1945 British Army personnel of World War I English justices of the peace Royal Army Pay Corps officers