# Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Beal, James

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​BEAL, James, was born in 1829, at Chelsea, and educated at private schools. He took an active part as the colleague of James Taylor, the founder of the Freehold Land movement, in establishing Land and Building Societies. Mr. Beal lectured several nights weekly for years in London, the provinces, and through Scotland, and contributed largely to the Freeholder. In consequence of the ritualistic practices of the curate of St. Barnabas, Pimlico, he brought the well-known suit, afterwards merged in a similar suit brought by Mr. Westerton, and known as "Westerton and Beal v. Liddell," which was the commencement of the movement that culminated in the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874. When the gas companies of London privately "districted" the metropolis, he conducted, on behalf of twenty-five vestries, as hon. secretary to the delegates, the parliamentary inquiries in 1857–60, and mainly secured the passing of the Metropolis Gas Act, 1860, and subsequently the City of London Gas Act, 1868. He was largely instrumental, acting as hon. secretary, in the return of the late J. Stuart Mill as M.P. for Westminster in 1865, and he has been a prominent politician in Westminster since 1852. Mr. Beal has devoted much time to parliamentary inquiries into the government and taxation of the metropolis. He was examined before the committees of the House of Commons in 1861 and 1867, and proposed the scheme adopted by Mr. Mill, and embodied in the three bills introduced by him and by the late Mr. C. Buxton and by Lord Elcho, to establish a municipal government for the metropolis. He is an active member of the City Guilds Reform Association, organised to secure a reform in the administration of the City Companies, and is the hon. secretary of the Metropolitan Municipal Association, formed to create a municipality of London. Mr. Beal is the author of "Free Trade in ​Land," 1855, an inquiry into the social and commercial influence of the laws of succession and the system of entail (which has been recently republished); of pamphlets against the Stamp Duty on Newspapers, and on Direct Taxation. He was a frequent contributor to the Atlas, and wrote in that journal a History of all the great Joint Stock Banks, and is the author of a series of letters in the Weekly Dispatch, dealing with the history and trusts of City Companies under the signature of "Nemesis." He took an active part in securing the Royal Commission on City Parochial Charities, now the subject of legislation. He secured the Royal Commission on "the Livery Companies of the City Corporation," and has been twice examined before the Commission. He contends that the guilds are an integral part of the Corporation, and that their estates and property and halls are public property, and must devolve to the new municipality about to be created. The government is pledged to introduce a bill to create the Municipality for London he has designed. He is the avowed author of the letters on the same subject, and "London Water Supply" in The Echo, under the signature of "Father Jean." He has formulated a demand for the restitution of Christ's Hospital to the poor of London, and claims that it shall be handed over to the London School Board. The great return on "Mortmain" now before the House of Commons was moved for at his suggestion. Mr. Beal took an active part in all the movements led by Mr. Bright and the late Mr. Cobden.