Thomas Alcock Beck

Thomas Alcock Beck (1795–1846) was the author of Annales Furnesienses (1844), a history of Furness Abbey, which was dedicated by permission to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and which contained twenty-six steel engravings and several woodcuts. Beck was a long-term resident of Hawkshead in Lancashire, where his parents had lived at The Grove. He was to use a wheelchair for much of his life, being unable to walk due to a spinal complaint. At one time he had attended Hawkshead Grammar School and he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1814, but left without taking a degree. Around 1819 he commenced the building of his regency mansion, Esthwaite Lodge (subsequently a youth hostel), to the design of George Webster. The grounds were specially laid out with easy gradients for his invalid chair. Besides other antiquarian interests, he also edited Dr. William Close's unfinished work An Itinerary of Furness.