Frederick Edward Blackett Beaumont

Wikipedia Biographical Summary

Frederick Edward Blackett Beaumont (22 October 1833 – 20 August 1899) was a British officer of the Royal Engineers who produced several inventions, including a tunneling machine which bore his name, and the Beaumont-Adams revolver.

Early life

Beaumont was the son of Edward Blackett Beaumont and Jane Lee. He was educated at the Harrow School, Harrow on the Hill, England.

Career

Beaumont served in the Royal Engineers and was a contemporary of General Charles George Gordon; his name appeared directly before Gordon's in the Army Lists from the date of their first commissioning on 23 June 1852.

As a lieutenant, Beaumont saw service during the Crimean War, and was one of only a small number of British officers who served with Turkish forces along the Danube, serving with the (local) rank of Captain in the Turkish Contingent Engineers, for which service he was awarded the Turkish Crimean War medal rather than the British Crimean War Medal.

In 1858 Beaumont again saw action, in the Indian Mutiny, during which he served on the staff of the Royal Engineers, distinguishing himself on 14 March 1858 at Lucknow and being awarded the Indian Mutiny Medal with clasp.

Promoted to Captain in 1866, Beaumont in conjunction with Captain F.E. Grover made efforts to get ballooning adopted by the British Army, Beaumont having witnessed the use of balloons in the American Civil War.

Beaumont was promoted to Major in 1872, and in 1873 was placed in charge of railways at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. While in the post he worked on methods for generating hydrogen for balloon experiments and was described by his contemporaries as "a man of remarkably inventive talent." In 1874 Beaumont became involved with the Channel Tunnel Company and successfully bored a number of tunnels without the use of explosives and more than three times faster than manual labour. He invented a tunneling machine which was accidentally credited with work actually carried out by Captain Thomas English's more successful machine in 1880, in the magazine The Engineer. Despite letters of complaint from Captain English the editor of the magazine did nothing to correct the mistake and even today the early Channel Tunnel trial is sometimes incorrectly credited to Beaumont's machine. In 1876 Beaumont took leave from the Army and was elected one of the two Members of Parliament for South Durham which he held from 1868 to 1880.

Beaumont retired from the Army shortly after his promotion to Colonel in 1877, and died on 20 August 1899.

SOURCE: Wikipedia contributors, 'Frederick Beaumont', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 29 October 2013, 22:31 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frederick_Beaumont&oldid=...> [accessed 31 December 2013]