# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/À Beckett, Arthur William

​À BECKETT, ARTHUR WILLIAM (1844–1909), humorist, third son of Gilbert Abbott à Beckett [q. v.], was born at Portland House, North End, Fulham, in October 1844. His godfather was William Gilbert [q. v.], the father of Sir William Schwenck Gilbert [q. v. Suppl. II]. Gilbert Arthur à Beckett [q. v. Suppl. I] was his elder brother. Arthur was educated first at Honiton and then at Felsted from January 1858 to December 1859 (Beevor, Alumni Felsted.). While at Felsted he contributed to the 'Braintree Times'; and later he was a favourite chairman of Old Felstedians. Palmerston nominated him in 1862 to a clerkship in the war office, but he soon migrated to the post office, and left the civil service in 1865 to engage in journalism. From 1871 to 1874 he was private secretary of the duke of Norfolk. Subsequently he became a student of Gray's Inn, 13 June 1877, and was called to the bar 3 May 1882, but he obtained no practice.
His vocation for the press showed itself early. At twenty he was assisting (Sir) Francis Burnand on the 'Glow-Worm,' a penny evening humorous paper, with which he was associated till 1868. He afterwards edited a satirical weekly, 'The Tomahawk.' At twenty-two, with the aid of his brother Gilbert, he wrote a 'Comic Guide to the Royal Academy' (1863-4). Good verbal spirits were the mainspring of his humour. Later he edited the 'Britannia' magazine (1868-70) and acted as special correspondent to the 'Standard' and the 'Globe' during the second period of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, when he was arrested at Amiens and astonished a court of French officers by his jocularity. In 1871, after experience in the volunteers, he was given a company in the king's own light infantry militia, and for a short time in 1896 edited the 'Naval and Military Magazine.' From 1891 to 1895 he was also editor of the 'Sunday Times,' under the directorship of Sir Augustus Harris. His best work was done in connection with 'Punch,' of which he claimed that his father was part-originator and founder. Tom Taylor first invited him to contribute in May 1874; in August 1875 he was called to the table, and for the following twenty-seven years he was an ardent devotee. His 'Papers from Pump Handle Court, by A Briefless Junior' (in continuation of the jeu d'esprit of his father) were much quoted. After Burnand's promotion to the editorship in 1880 he occasionally acted as locum tenens. His withdrawal from 'Punch' under pressure in June 1902 left some resentment, and he projected and edited through 1902-3 a rival comic paper, 'John Bull,' which met with no success. Apart from his 'Punch' work he wrote 'About Town,' '£. s. d.,' and some melodramatic novels, ​one of which, 'Fallen among Thieves' (1876), he and John Palgrave Simpson [q. v.] dramatised as 'From Father to Son.' He was also author of 'Our Holiday in the Scottish Highlands' in conjunction with Linley Sambourne in 1876, and in his last years of several very loosely knit volumes of recollections, among them 'London at the End of the Century' (1900), 'The À Becketts of Punch' (1903), and 'Recollections, of a Humourist' (1907). President of the Newspaper Society in 1895, of the Institute of Journalists in 1900, and British delegate of the press congress at Liège in 1905, he was universally liked in his profession. Irrepressible egotism in À Beckett lent an additional charm to a character simple, kindly, and genial to its foundation. His naiveté was well shown in his relations with Cardinal Manning, to whose church he became, like his friend Burnand, a convert in 1874. An accident necessitated the removal of A Beckett's leg at St. Thomas's Home on 11 Jan. 1909, and he died of collapse on 14 Jan. 1909. After a requiem mass at Westminster he was buried in Mortlake cemetery. He married in 1876 Susanna Francesca, daughter of Dr. Forbes Winslow, by whom he left two sons. His completion of his father's 'Comic History of England' is still unpublished.
[The Times, 12-15, 19 Jan. 1909; Illustrated London News, 18 Jan. 1909 (portrait); Men and Women of the Time, 1899; Foster's Men at the Bar, 1885; Burnand's Records and Reminiscences, 1904, ii. 230; Recollections of a Humourist, 1907 (portrait); Spielmann's Hist. of Punch (1895); Brit. Mus. Cat.; À Beckett's works; personal recollections.]
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