Sketcher, lawyer and politician, was born in London on 13 September 1808, second son of William à Beckett, a solicitor, and Sarah, née Abbott. Admitted as a solicitor and attorney at Lincoln’s Inn in 1829 à Beckett practised in London for the next twenty-one years. In 1850 he visited his two brothers who had migrated to Sydney and decided to settle at Port Phillip (Melbourne) and continue to practise his profession. In 1852 he entered public life as a member of the Victorian Legislative Council. He held several ministerial posts before his retirement in 1878 and was a trustee of the Melbourne Public Library, Art Gallery and Museum. He gave public readings from Charles Dickens’s novels and delivered lectures, one being published in Melbourne in 1871 as Painting and Painters .

Two works by the Hon. T.T. à Beckett – Schnapper Point and Point Nepean Police Station – were shown at the Victorian Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1860. Despite being listed in the sculpture section of the catalogue, they appear to have been drawings or paintings. Late watercolours, including a conventional little Australian landscape, Minnie’s Hut Feby 1881 , and Gum Trees near Grange (1878 and 1883), are included in a collection of family papers containing works by his more artistically famous niece, Emma Minnie Boyd (Fryer Library). The most interesting shows Emma Minnie and two other girls playing croquet on the lawn at The Grange in 1878.

A devout Anglican, à Beckett died on 1 July 1892 and was buried in the Church of England section of the Melbourne General Cemetery with his two wives: Eliza (d.1854) and Laura Jane (d.1902).

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011