Peter Beck

Francis Peter Beck CVO (27 June 1909 – 17 May 2002) was an English soldier and schoolmaster.

In the 1930s Beck was a peace campaigner, but in 1938, a year before the Second World War, he joined the British Army. After the war he became headmaster of Cheam School, serving there from 1947 to 1963.

Life The son of Arthur C. Beck CVO, of Heydon, Norfolk, nephew of Captain Frank Beck, Beck was educated at Gresham's School (where he was a cadet CSM in the Officers' Training Corps) and Magdalene College, Cambridge. There, he graduated BA in 1931 and proceeded to MA in 1944. In 1932, while working at Sandringham, he became a member and local representative of the New Commonwealth Society, a group campaigning to secure world peace by giving the League of Nations a military capability. This led to his working closely with Sir Norman Angell, the Labour member of parliament, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1933.

In December 1938 Beck was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Norfolk Regiment. Beck twice caned Charles for "ragging". In 1962, he was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, and in 1963 retired from Cheam. They had one son, Philip, and one daughter, Mary.