Henry William Beechey (1788/89 – 4 August 1862)^[1] was an English painter and explorer. His father was the painterSir William Beechey,RA and his stepmother wasAnne Jessop.^[2] He followed his father's profession. He sent a marine subject to theRoyal Academy in 1829, and another in 1838 to theBritish Institution.^[3]

Beechey was born in 1789 or 1790. His mother, his father's first wife, had five children before her death. Beechey was brought up by his fatherWilliam Beechey and his second wife,Anne Jessop. Both his father and stepmother were painters, and they married in 1793. They had many children together, and several of these would be notable painters. Beechey trained at theRoyal Academy.^[4]

Some time before 1816, he had become secretary toHenry Salt, the British consul-general in Egypt, and at the latter's request accompaniedGiovanni Belzoni in that and the following year beyond the second cataract, for the purpose of studying and making designs of the fine monuments existing atThebes. In the laborious excavation of thetemple of Ipsambul, Beechey took his share; he also copied the paintings, in the king's tombs in the valley ofBiban-el-Muluk, which had lately been opened by Belzoni.

In common with Salt, Beechey had much to endure from Belzoni's suspicious and jealous nature (Life and Correspondence of Henry Salt, ed. Halls, volume ii.) About 1820 he returned to England, and the next year was appointed byEarl Bathurst, on the part of the colonial office, to examine and report on the antiquities of theCyrenaica, his brother,Captain Beechey, having been detached to survey the coast-line from Tripoli to Derna. The results of this expedition, which occupied the greater part of the years 1821 and 1822, were chronicled in a journal kept by the brothers, to which Henry Beechey added numerous drawings, illustrative of the art and natural peculiarities of the classic region they were exploring, many of which were left out when the narrative came to be published in 1828.^[5]

Of the remainder of Beechey's life there is little record. He had seen much vicissitude, and in 1851 emigrated toNew Zealand, where he died in 1862. He left a family. Besides his share in the above-mentioned work Beechey wrote a painstaking memoir of SirJoshua Reynolds, prefixed to the edition of the latter'sLiterary Works, published in 2 vols. octavo, London, 1835, and afterwards reprinted inBohn'sStandard Library edition, 2 vols. octavo, London, 1852.

Beechey became afellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1825.^{[DNB 1][6]}

These references are found in the DNB article referred to above.

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• Works related toBeechey, Henry William at Wikisource

• 1862 deaths
• 1780s births
• 19th-century English explorers
• 19th-century English painters
• English male painters
• 19th-century English male artists
• Abu Simbel

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