Sir John Beard (died 1685) was an administrator of the

English East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southe ...

. He served as the Chief Agent and President of

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

in the late seventeenth century.Provinces of British India – World Statesmen
/ref> Beard wrote one of the earliest accounts of the legend of

Gabriel Boughton Gabriel Boughton was an East India Company (EIC) ship surgeon who travelled to India in the first half of the seventeenth century and became highly regarded by Mughal royalty. He became the centre of a legend surrounding the acquisition by the ...

. He died in Hooghly in 1685.

References

Presidents of Bengal 18th-century British people 17th-century English businesspeople Year of birth missing 1685 deaths {{UK-gov-bio-stub