Sir Harold Beauchamp was a New Zealand banker, and is remembered as the father of author Katherine Mansfield.
Background
His father successfully contested the 1866 election for the Picton electorate but resigned in 1867, sold up and moved to isolated Beatrix Bay in Pelorus Sound. After they moved to Wanganui in 1869, Harold attended Wanganui Collegiate School and left at 14 to work for his father"s general merchant and auctioneering business.
Education
Wanganui Collegiate School.
Career
Born in Ararat, Victoria, Australia on 15 November 1858 to Arthur Beauchamp and Mary Elizabeth Stanley, the family moved to Nelson in 1861 and then Picton. He moved to Wellington and did well in business. The first family home where Kathleen Mansfield was born was in Thorndon.
In 1893 they moved to a larger home, Chesney Wold, in Karori.
Between 1903 and 1906 Beauchamp"s three daughters attended Queen"s College, London. When he returned to London to collect them, he attended the Sixth Congress of Federation of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire and was received by King Edward VII. After their return, Beauchamp"s personal life took several turns for the worse.
His father Arthur died in Nelson in 1910. His mother Mary died in 1917.
In 1935, he was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Meda
In his later years, he travelled frequently between London and Wellington and his reports of the trading outlook for New Zealand"s primary exports widely reported. He died in Wellington, on 5 October 1938. He left substantial gifts to the National Art Gallery.
Harold"s brother Harry Lomax Beauchamp farmed at Otaki for many years and died in 1939.
Membership
He became a partner of the business in 1889, and a member of the Wellington Harbour Board in 1895. As a member of the 1901 Royal Commission on Federation he advised against New Zealand joining the Australian federation.