Mark Hanbury Beaufoy
Encyclopedia
Mark Hanbury Beaufoy JP
Justice of the Peace
A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...

 (1854 – 10 November 1922) was an English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 vinegar manufacturer and Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

 member of parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

. He wrote A Father's Advice, a famous piece of verse about gun safety
Gun safety
Gun safety is a collection of rules and recommendations that can be applied when handling firearms. The purpose of gun safety is to eliminate or minimize the risks of unintentional death, injury or damage caused by improper handling of firearms....

.

Background and early life

The son of Lieutenant Commander
Lieutenant Commander
Lieutenant Commander is a commissioned officer rank in many navies. The rank is superior to a lieutenant and subordinate to a commander...

 George Beaufoy RN
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 (1796–1864), and the grandson of Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...

 Mark Beaufoy
Mark Beaufoy
thumb|right|An engraving of Mark Beaufoy, by Valentine GreenColonel Mark Beaufoy FRS was an English astronomer and physicist, mountaineer, explorer and British Army officer...

 FRS (1764–1827), Beaufoy was educated at Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 and Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Trinity Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the fifth-oldest college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich.- Foundation :...

. The Beaufoys had been vinegar makers since the 1740s, when Colonel Mark Beaufoy's father, another Mark Beaufoy (1718–1782) who was originally from Evesham
Evesham
Evesham is a market town and a civil parish in the Local Authority District of Wychavon in the county of Worcestershire, England with a population of 22,000. It is located roughly equidistant between Worcester, Cheltenham and Stratford-upon-Avon...

, established a vinegar plant at Cuper's Gardens, on a site which later formed part of Waterloo Bridge
Waterloo Bridge
Waterloo Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, England between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge. The name of the bridge is in memory of the British victory at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815...

. Despite being his father's youngest son, George Beaufoy succeeded to the vinegar works in 1851, when he retired from the Navy. The next year he married Anne Harvey, with whom he had three children. George Beaufoy died in 1864, leaving his business in trust for Beaufoy, his only son, who was then ten. By the time the business came into Beaufoy's hands, it was at number 87, South Lambeth Road
A203 road
The A203 is a primary A road in South London. It runs from Brixton to Vauxhall connecting the A23 and A3 with Vauxhall Bridge, the Albert Embankment as well as the London Inner Ring Road for travel across the River Thames. Between Brixton and Stockwell tube station it is known as Stockwell Road...

, South Lambeth
Lambeth
Lambeth is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated southeast of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...

, having moved there in 1810.

The name Hanbury came into the Beaufoy family in 1743, when the Mark Beaufoy who founded the family firm married Elizabeth Hanbury, daughter of Capel Hanbury (died 1740) of Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

 and Pontymoile
Pontymoile
Pontymoile is a large community of the town of Pontypool in Torfaen, south east Wales, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire....

 and of his wife Elizabeth Newton, an heiress.

In 1930, Gwendolyn Beaufoy published Leaves from a Beech Tree, a history of the Beaufoy family.

Career

Beaufoy supported the introduction of the eight-hour day
Eight-hour day
The eight-hour day movement or 40-hour week movement, also known as the short-time movement, had its origins in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life and imposed long hours and poor working conditions. With working conditions...

 for all employees and introduced it in his own vinegar works at Lambeth. In 1881, he chaired a meeting which founded the Church of England Central Society for Providing Homes for Waifs and Strays, later renamed the Church of England Children's Society, and now known as The Children's Society
The Children's Society
The Children's Society, formally The Church of England Children's Society, is a UK charity allied to the Church of England and driven by a belief that all children deserve a good childhood.-History:...

. The object of the new organization was "to rescue and care for children who are orphaned, homeless, cruelly treated or in moral danger, and to relieve over-burdened homes".

A Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

 in politics, Beaufoy was elected as member of parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for the Kennington division
Kennington (UK Parliament constituency)
Kennington was a borough constituency centred on the Kennington district of South London. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom....

 of the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth
Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth
The Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth was a Metropolitan borough under London County Council from 1900 to 1965.-History:The borough covered the area of the former Lambeth parish vestry. In addition to the historic riverside area of Lambeth, this included Kennington, Vauxhall, Stockwell, Brixton, the...

 at a by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....

 on 15 March 1889 and was re-elected at the general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

 of 1891, holding the seat until 1895. He was also a Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...

.

Beaufoy continued his family's support of the City of London School
City of London School
The City of London School is a boys' independent day school on the banks of the River Thames in the City of London, England. It is the brother school of the City of London School for Girls and the co-educational City of London Freemen's School...

. He also founded the Beaufoy Institute in Black Prince Road, Lambeth (later taken over by the London County Council
London County Council
London County Council was the principal local government body for the County of London, throughout its 1889–1965 existence, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council...

), to replace a 'ragged school' established by the Beaufoys before 1870. A stone plaque on the Beaufoy Institute reads: "This principal stone was laid by Mildred Scott Beaufoy wife of Mark Hanbury Beaufoy, Chairman of Governors, 21 February 1907. F. A. Powell Architect, Sculpt Nixon".

Shooting

Beaufoy began to shoot at the age of twenty and became an enthusiast for game shooting, preferring quality of game to quantity. He had his own shoot at Coombe House, near Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury is a town in Dorset, England, situated on the A30 road near the Wiltshire border 20 miles west of Salisbury. The town is built 718 feet above sea level on the side of a chalk and greensand hill, which is part of Cranborne Chase, the only significant hilltop settlement in Dorset...

, in the border country of Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...

 and Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, consisting of about fifteen hundred acres, plus another five hundred which he rented. The land was ideal for pheasant
Pheasant
Pheasants refer to some members of the Phasianinae subfamily of Phasianidae in the order Galliformes.Pheasants are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattles and long tails. Males are usually larger than females and have...

 shooting. Beaufoy also ran a second shoot at Ashmore
Ashmore
Ashmore is a small village in the North Dorset district of Dorset, England; situated south-west of Salisbury. The local travel links are located from the village to Tisbury railway station and to Bournemouth International Airport. The main road running through the village is North Road...

 in Dorset.

Throughout the English-speaking world, shooting people are familiar with Beaufoy's verses on gun safety
Gun safety
Gun safety is a collection of rules and recommendations that can be applied when handling firearms. The purpose of gun safety is to eliminate or minimize the risks of unintentional death, injury or damage caused by improper handling of firearms....

 called A Father's Advice. These begin:
"If a sportsman true you'd be
Listen carefully to me:
Never, never, let your gun
Pointed be at anyone..."


Beaufoy had written the verses by Christmas, 1902, when they were given to his fifteen-year-old eldest son, Henry Mark Beaufoy, together with his first gun, a 28-bore
Gauge (bore diameter)
The gauge of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the diameter of the barrel. Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the firearm, and is expressed as the multiplicative inverse of the sphere's weight as a fraction of a pound . Thus...

. A hundred copies of the verses were printed and given to friends. A Father's Advice quickly became well-known in shooting circles, but it was not always credited to Beaufoy.

The verses appeared in many different publications, sometimes with Beaufoy's permission, more often without it. Gun-makers began to send A Father's Advice out with their cartridges, and a gamekeeper
Gamekeeper
A gamekeeper is a person who manages an area of countryside to make sure there is enough game for shooting, or fish for angling, and who actively manages areas of woodland, moorland, waterway or farmland for the benefit of game birds, deer, fish and wildlife in general.Typically, a gamekeeper is...

 offered the verses to a Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

 magazine, claiming to have written them. It was sometimes said they were by an officer killed in the Boer war
Boer War
The Boer Wars were two wars fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics, the Oranje Vrijstaat and the Republiek van Transvaal ....

, and in a letter to The Sporting Times
The Sporting Times
The Sporting Times was a weekly British newspaper devoted chiefly to sport, and in particular to horse racing...

they were attributed to the Reverend J. L. Browne, an Eastbourne
Eastbourne
Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...

 headmaster. Browne replied to say they were not his, and in November 1910 Beaufoy himself wrote in to say he was the author, adding "Perhaps they have not been wholly useless - if so, I am amply rewarded".

The verses were highly thought of on the royal shooting estate at Sandringham
Sandringham House
Sandringham House is a country house on of land near the village of Sandringham in Norfolk, England. The house is privately owned by the British Royal Family and is located on the royal Sandringham Estate, which lies within the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.-History and current...

, and A. S. Gaye translated them into Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

.

Kennel Club

As a young man, Beaufoy kept mastiff
English Mastiff
The English Mastiff, referred to by virtually all Kennel Clubs simply as the Mastiff, is a breed of large dog perhaps descended from the ancient Alaunt through the Pugnaces Britanniae. Distinguishable by enormous size, massive head, and a limited range of colors, but always displaying a black mask,...

s and bloodhound
Bloodhound
The Bloodhound is a large breed of dog which, while originally bred to hunt deer and wild boar, was later bred specifically to track human beings. It is a scenthound, tracking by smell, as opposed to a sighthound, which tracks using vision. It is famed for its ability to discern human odors even...

s and between 1920 and his death in 1922 he served as chairman of The Kennel Club
The Kennel Club
The Kennel Club is a kennel club based in London and Aylesbury, United Kingdom.The Kennel Club registration system divides dogs into seven breed groups. The Kennel Club Groups are: Hound, Working, Terrier, Gundog, Pastoral, Utility and Toy...

.

Marriage and children

In 1884, Beaufoy married Mildred Scott Tait, daughter of Robert Tait. They had one daughter, Margaret Hilda (born 1885) and three sons, Henry Mark (1887), George Maurice (1893), and Robert Harvey (1895). Henry Mark Beaufoy, later of Hill House, Steeple Aston
Steeple Aston
Steeple Aston is a village and civil parish on the edge of the Cherwell Valley in Oxfordshire, England, about west of Bicester and south of Banbury...

 in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

, became High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1944. The youngest son, Robert, lost his left arm during the First World War, but continued with his shooting, going on to become a good one-armed shot. The middle son, George Maurice Beaufoy, was killed on 10 May 1941 when a bomb fell on the family vinegar yard in Lambeth during the Second World War. He was the last of the Beaufoys to manage the business.

External links

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