Born in Leicester sometime before 14 Apr 1824 when he was baptised at St Margaret’s church—the son of brickmaker John and his wife Sarah (née Ellis). On 20 Jul 1846 he married his first wife Susannah Tappin of Islington at Holy Trinity Church—John being described as a ‘labourer’. Was a London City Missionary based in Greenwich, Kent (now London) from 1849 to 1862 before coming into fellowship with Brethren. Susannah died on 30 Nov 1851 from pulmonary tuberculosis, aged 30. On 21 Mar 1857 John married, secondly, Martha Saker Loveday at the Register Office, Newington, Surrey. Over the next twelve years they went on to have four sons and two daughters. From 1863 he lived at Ryde on the Isle of Wight and was at first a Schoolmaster there until becoming a full-time preacher of the gospel. By 1869 he was living at Paignton, Devon.
In 1875 he came to public notice when various newspapers reported his attendance at what would turn out to be the last public execution in the British Isles. Although the Capital Punishment (Amendment) Act of 1868 ended public hanging in the United Kingdom, it did not apply to the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. Joseph Philip Le Brun had been found guilty of the murder of his married sister, Nancy Laurens, and was sentenced to death. He had maintained his innocence throughout but was convicted on circumstantial evidence and the testimony of his brother-in-law. The Jersey Express and Channel Islands Advertiser of 12 Aug 1875 gave a detailed report:
Last night,—his last in this world,—Le Brun slept for about an hour, from 3.15 to 4.15. He was attended upon all night by Mr. John Beaumont, a member among the Plymouth Brethren, who has been very assiduous in his endeavours to bring the culprit to a right frame of mind, and, as he has declared, with the most satisfactory results, feeling assured that Le Brun had been able to cast himself upon the merits of Christ, and that he was a saved man. Let us hope that this is so.
[…] On arriving at the foot of the scaffold the procession halted, whilst Mr. Simon, the Deputy Viscount, read the sentence by which the culprit was condemned to be hanged. On finishing the reading of the sentence, Mr. Simon asked Le Brun if he had anything to say, and whether he was innocent of the crime alleged against him. He merely replied by a half shake of the head and saying, “I am innocent.” The procession then started again up the steps to the scaffold. […]
The executioner (Marwood of Horncastle) and Mr. Beaumont accompanied the culprit on to the drop, Mr. Beaumont directing his prayers, and Le Brun responding, whilst Marwood continued the last operations of adjusting the noose, &c. The last words he was heard to utter just before the cap was drawn over his head were—“Lord Jesus receive my spirit.”
[Some eleven years later in July 1886 many newspapers throughout the British Isles reported that, ‘A dying man in Jersey is said to have confessed being the murderer of Nancy Laurens, wife of Philip Laurens, farmer, in December, 1874.’]
In Napoleon Noel’s The History of the Brethren (W. F. Knapp, 1936, p.13) the publisher and Editor provided a short biography of the author, explaining that he came among the brethren in 1871 as a young man of 18 years of age and attended Gospel addresses ‘by a Mr. J. Beaumont (J. B. wrote the hymn, “My Shepherd is the Lord”)’. A little later the book quotes a newspaper’s account of the funeral of G. V. Wigram in 1879, ‘Mr. J. Beaumont then read a few verses from the New Testament, concluding with the closing verses of the Book of Revelation.’ (p.61). However, Knapp was wrong in attributing the hymn to John Beaumont - the author is actually James Beaumont (?-1750).
John's wife, Martha, died in Sep 1881 and two years later tragedy struck the family again when his youngest son, Augustus Donald, drowned in the sea at Bournemouth, aged just 18. After the division that took place among the brethren in 1881, John Beaumont had remained in fellowship with William Kelly and was a very close associate of Dr Heyman Wreford of Exeter. He visited Canada and the USA as well as teaching and preaching in many parts of the British Isles. In 1882 he married, thirdly, Adelaide Stanton. Latterly he resided in Bournemouth and after many years of Christian service died at Swanage, Dorset, England on 27 Sep 1896, aged 72. He was buried at Bournemouth Cemetery on 2 Oct 1896.
NRF