Thomas Beeching

Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Hugh Pitt Beeching (10 March 1900 – 31 December 1971) was an English businessman, soldier and cricketer who played first-class cricket in the early 1920s.

Early life Beeching was born at Maidstone in Kent in March 1900, the son of Hugh and Pearl Beeching. His father was a Major in the Royal West Kent Regiment who later went on to work as a manager in a paper manufacturing firm. Beeching was educated at Charterhouse School, playing in the cricket XI in 1917 when he averaged 81.66 runs per innings. He also captained Charterhouse at association football, played in the racquets pair and was considered a fine all-round sportsman, winning the victor ludorum award at school. He served as a Lieutenant with the first and third battalions of the RWK throughout 1920 before resigning his commission in December 1920 to join the family firm Beechings, a motor vehicle engineering company in Aldershot. as well as making a single Second XI appearance for Kent in 1923. He played club cricket for Band of Brothers, Free Foresters and I Zingari. He later served in Italy and was Mentioned in Dispatches in 1944. He reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel before being demobilised in October 1945.

Later life Beeching had married Elizabeth Harrison in 1929. He was active in motor vehicle trader associations and after World War II was the managing director of Beechings until he retired in 1965. He died at Aldershot in 1971 aged 71.