Gilbert Abbott à Beckett

Gilbert Abbott à Beckett
Born	9 January 1811 London, England
Died	30 August 1856 (aged 45) Boulogne-sur-Mer, France
Resting place	Highgate Cemetery
Nationality	English
Occupation	Lawyer, humorist writer

Gilbert Abbott à Beckett (9 January 1811 – 30 August 1856) was an English humorist.^[1]

He was born in London, the son of a lawyer, and belonged to a family claiming descent from Thomas Becket. He was educated at Westminster School and was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1841.

He edited the comic paper Figaro in London and was one of the original staff of Punch and a contributor until his death. He was an active journalist on The Times and The Morning Herald, contributed a series of light articles to The Illustrated London News, conducted in 1846 The Almanack of the Month and found time to produce some fifty or sixty plays, among them dramatized versions of Charles Dickens's shorter stories, written in collaboration with Mark Lemon. He is perhaps best known as the author of Comic History of England (1847–48), Comic History of Rome (1852) and a Comic Blackstone (1846).^[2] He wrote the book for two operas with music composed by his wife Mary Anne à Beckett (née Glossop), Agnes Sorrel and Red Riding Hood.

As poor-law commissioner he presented a valuable report to the Home Secretary regarding the Andover workhouse scandal, and in 1849 he became a metropolitan police magistrate.^[3] He died in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, of typhoid fever and is buried at Highgate Cemetery.

His elder brother, Sir William à Beckett (1806–1869), became chief justice of Victoria, Australia. He was the father of two other Victorian writers, Gilbert Arthur à Beckett and Arthur William à Beckett.

References

1.  Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1885). "À Beckett, Gilbert Abbott". Dictionary of National Biography. 1. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 31.
2. The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 6th Edition. Edited by Margaret Drabble, Oxford University Press, 2000 p.2
3. Chambers Biographical Dictionary, ISBN 0-550-18022-2, page 3

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource 

External links

• Works by Gilbert Abbott À Becket at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Gilbert Abbott à Beckett at Internet Archive
• "Punch, or, The London Charivari, 1841", Science in the 19th Century Periodical
• "The comic history of England". Colour engravings by John Leech with text by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett. BibliOdyssey
• À Beckett, Gilbert Abbott & Leech, John. The comic history of England, London : Bradbury, Agnew, & Co., [1864]
• À Beckett, Gilbert Abbott & Leech, John. The comic history of England, London : George Routledge, New York : E. P. Dutton, [1894]
• Portraits of Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett at the National Portrait Gallery, London