Brigadier-General William Thomas Clifford Beckett

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

DSO VD (1862 – 4 March 1956) was a British

railway engineer Railway engineering is a multi-faceted engineering discipline dealing with the design, construction and operation of all types of rail transport systems. It encompasses a wide range of engineering disciplines, including civil engineering, compu ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and a

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 ...

officer. Beckett was the eldest son of William Henry Beckett, a

colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge o ...

in the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

and his wife Sarah Philadelphia Beckett (née Walton). He was educated at

Tonbridge School (God Giveth the Increase) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day and boarding , religion = , president = , head_label ...

(1877–1880, as a day-boy) and Crystal Palace School of Engineering. His uncle, Frederick Thomas Granville Walton, was an acclaimed bridge engineer in India, who was in charge of the construction of the Dufferin Bridge over the

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

Benares Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic tra ...

between 1881 and 1887, and who served from 1900 as the engineer-in-chief for the construction of the iconic

Havelock Bridge The Old Godavari Bridge (also known as The Havelock Bridge) is a decommissioned bridge that spans the Godavari River in Andhra Pradesh, India. Commissioned in 1900, the bridge served trains plying between Howrah and Madras. It is the earlies ...

, a 2700-metre crossing of the Godavari River in

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. In 1887, Beckett was appointed a district engineer with the

Bengal-Nagpur Railway The Bengal Nagpur Railway was one of the companies which pioneered development of the railways in eastern and central India. It was succeeded first by Eastern Railway and subsequently by South Eastern Railway. History The opening of the ...

in India. He became an associate member of the

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...

in 1889 and a member in 1895. He was promoted to superintending engineer in 1900 and chief engineer and acting general manager in 1901. He was particularly noted for his bridging of the rivers in

Orissa Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of S ...

, for which he was awarded the Stephenson Gold Medal and the Telford Premium. The largest and most challenging bridge completed as part of these works was the construction of the first rail bridge over the

Mahanadi The Mahanadi is a major river in East Central India. It drains an area of around and has a total length of . Mahanadi is also known for the Hirakud Dam. The river flows through the states of Chhattisgarh and Odisha and finally merged with Bay ...

River at

Cuttack Cuttack (, or officially Kataka ) in Odia is the former capital and the second largest city in the Indian state of Odisha. It is the headquarters of the Cuttack district. The name of the city is an anglicised form of ''Kataka'' which literally ...

, which was completed in 1900. From 1900 to 1904 he was government representative on both the Calcutta Port Trust and the Calcutta Corporation. For many years, Beckett was an officer in the Bengal-Nagpur Railway Rifles, reaching the rank of

lieutenant-colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colo ...

commanding the battalion. On 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 ...

in 1914 he joined the British Army and in 1915 was given command of the 1st/12th Battalion,

Loyal North Lancashire Regiment The Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire) (until 1921 known as the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army that was in existence from 1881 to 1970. In 1970, the regiment was amalgamated with the Lancashire Reg ...

, a

pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and de ...

battalion A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions a ...

which he commanded for the rest of the war, being awarded the

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, ty ...

(DSO) in 1918. Bridge near mahanadi vihar cuttack

In 1919 he was given command of the British Military Railway Mission in

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

and

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...

during the

Russian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...

and was later given the rank of brigadier-general. He was mentioned in dispatches four times and appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(CBE) in the Siberian War Honours of January 1920. From 1921 to 1923, when he retired, he was British member of the Inter-Allied Technical Board for the

Trans-Siberian Railway The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the ea ...

at Harbin. He was awarded the Chinese Order of Chia Ho and the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun. In December 1889 William Beckett married Bessie Drummond Thomason, fourth daughter of Major-General Charles Simeon Thomason and granddaughter of

James Thomason James Thomason (3 May 1804 – 17 September 1853) was a British administrator of the East India Company and Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces between 1843 and 1853. Early life The son of Thomas Truebody Thomason, a British cle ...

, lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces from 1843 to 1853 and founder of the College of Civil Engineering at Roorkee. Major-General

Clifford Thomason Beckett Major-General Clifford Thomason Beckett CB, CBE, MC (9 November 1891 – 8 July 1972) was an officer of the British Army who had a distinguished military career which spanned almost thirty-five years, including service in the two world wars. E ...

and Captain W. N. T. Beckett RN were his sons.

Footnotes

References

*Obituary, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', 11 February 1939 *''The Bridges over the Orissa Rivers on the East Coast Extension of the Bengal – Nagpur Railway'', W. T. C. Beckett, M. Inst. C.E., Paper No. 3250, 1901 *''

Who Was Who ''Who's Who'' is a reference work. It is a book, and also a CD-ROM and a website, giving information on influential people from around the world. Published annually as a book since 1849, it lists people who influence British life, according to i ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Beckett, William 1862 births 1956 deaths People educated at Tonbridge School British railway civil engineers British Army brigadiers Loyal Regiment officers British Army personnel of World War I British Army personnel of the Russian Civil War Railway officers in British India Companions of the Distinguished Service Order Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun Indian Defence Force officers