Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe

Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe, (12 May 1816 – 29 April 1905), known previously as Sir Edmund Beckett, 5th Baronet and Edmund Beckett Denison, was an English lawyer, mechanician, and controversialist, He was also responsible throughout the 1880s and 1890s for rebuilding the west front, roof, and transept windows of St Albans Cathedral at his own expense. Although the building had been in need of repair (and indeed considerable work had already been done since 1856 under the guidance of Sir George Gilbert Scott until his death in 1878, including making the central tower safe, correcting the listing of the south side of the nave, and reconstructing the shrine of Saint Alban), popular opinion at the time held that he had changed the cathedral's character, even inspiring the creation and temporary popularity of the verb "to grimthorpe", meaning to carry out unsympathetic restorations of ancient buildings. Part of Beckett's additions included statues of the four evangelists around the western door; the statue of St Matthew has Beckett's face. He later turned his attentions to St Peter's and then to St Michael's churches, both in the same city. He lived at Batchwood Hall from where he oversaw the restoration work on the cathedral.

He died on 29 April 1905 after a fall, and is buried in the grounds of St Albans Cathedral. His obituary in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society noted his mastery of ecclesiastical law, his publications (ranging from Astronomy without Mathematics to Clocks, Watches, and Bells (1903) to Building, Civil and Ecclesiastical) and noted "there was not a better locksmith in England."