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BEILBY, RALPH (1744–1817), engraver, was the son of William Beilby, a jeweller and goldsmith at Durham, who, being unsuccessful in business there, removed to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Ralph became a silversmith, jeweller, and seal-engraver under his father, and acquired several useful arts and accomplishments. To the engraving of arms and letters on seals and silver plate he added engraving on copper, as there were at that time no engravers in the north of England. He executed heraldic engravings with extraordinary facility, and his plate of 'Thornton's Monument,' in Brand's 'History of Newcastle,' shows that he possessed considerable skill in engraving on copper. The celebrated Thomas Bewick was apprenticed to him in 1767, and ten years afterwards became his partner. This partnership was dissolved in 1797, and the business then devolved on Bewick alone. Beilby was distinguished for his literary and scientific pursuits, and was also a good musician. He was one of the earliest and most zealous promoters of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle. Beilby engraved the beautiful frontispiece to Gay's 'Fables' (Newcastle, 1779), and he was engaged with Bewick in executing the engravings for Osterwald's edition of the Bible (Newcastle, 1806). He wrote the descriptive part of the 'History of Quadrupeds,' illustrated by Bewick (1790; 8th ed. 1824), and of the first volume of the 'History of British Birds,' also illustrated by Bewick (1797; 8th ed.; 1847). Beilby died at Newcastle on 4 Jan. 1817, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.



BEILBY, WILLIAM, M.D. (1783–1849), a philanthropic physician of Edinburgh, was born at Sheffield, 13 April 1783. In 1807 he entered into a partnership in the linen trade with some relatives in Dublin, but in 1813 he removed to Edinburgh to study medicine. After taking the degree of M.D. in 1816, he settled in Edinburgh to practise midwifery. He soon obtained a high reputation in his profession, and was appointed physician accoucheur to the New Town Dispensary. He took a prominent interest in benevolent and religious matters, including the schemes of the Evangelical Alliance, and was the first president of the Medical Missionary Society. He died on 30 May 1849.



BEITH or BEETH, WILLIAM (15th cent.), a Dominican writer, according to Anthony à Wood, spent his early years at Oxford, and was, towards the middle of his life, made provincial of his order for England. The apparent date assigned for his appointment to this office in Altamura's 'Bibliotheca Ordinis Prædicatorum' is 1480; but he does not uppear to have continued to hold it till the time of his death. According to Possevinus he was still living in 1498. Those of Beith's writings whose titles have been preserved include commentaries on the 'Sentences' of Peter Lombard, a treatise 'De Unitate formarum,' and certain 'Lecturæ Scholasticæ.' According to Wood, Beith was a most successful provincial of his order, and achieved a great renown amongst the learned men of Henry VII's reign.



BEK is the name of a family in Lincolnshire, from which sprang several men of eminence in the thirteenth century. The Beks were descended from one Walter Bek, called in the 'Great Survey' Walter Flandrensis, who came over with William the Conqueror, and received from him the lordship of Firesby in Lincolnshire, 'et multa alia maneria.' From his three sons, I. Henry, II. Walter, and III. John, sprung three great Lincolnshire families: I. Bek of Eresby, II. Bek of Luceby, III. Bek of Botheby. With the last of these we have no concern.

I. From Henry Bek, lord of Eresby, was descended, about the middle of the thirteenth century, Walter Bek, who had three sons: (1), lord of Eresby, from whose daughter the Lords Willoughby de Eresby claimed their descent, as they obtained from her their barony; (2) (d. 1293), who became bishop of St. David's in 1280 [see below], (3) , the third son (d. 1310), who became bishop of Durham in 1283 [see below].

II. From Bek of Luceby sprang another Walter, who was constable of the castle of Lincoln at the time when his kinsmen Thomas I and Antony I were respectively bishops of St. David's and Durham, and died 25 Aug. 1291. He had three sons: (1), born 18 Aug. 1278; (2) Antony II, born 5 Aug. 1279; (3) II, born 22 Feb. 1282.

The three sons were all under age at the date of their father's death, and probably