Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/80

Becher  of Friendly Societies upon Legal and Scientific Principles exemplified by the Rules and Tables of Calculations adopted ... for the Government of the Friendly Institute at Southwell' (3rd edition, 1826); followed in 1825 by 'Tables showing the single and monthly contributions to be paid, the allowances to be granted, and the method of calculating, at every period of life, the value of assurances effected by members of Friendly Societies, together with a system of Bookkeeping recommended for the use of such institutions.' In 1826 appeared his 'Observations upon the Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Laws respecting Friendly Societies, exemplifying and vindicating the principles of Life Assurance adopted in calculating the Southwell Tables, together with the heads of a Bill for improving the constitution and management of such institutions,' The vindication was of Becher's contention that sick allowances could be calculated on a scientific basis, and that the Northampton tables of mortality afforded the best data for life assurance and cognate calculations, both of which positions had been contested before the committee by Mr. Finlaison, the actuary of the national debt. In 1828 Becher published 'The Anti-Pauper System, exemplifying the positive and practical good realised by the relievers and the relieved under the frugal, beneficent, and careful administration of the poor laws prevailing at Southwell and in the neighbouring district,' &c. The erection of a workhouse at Southwell, the substitution of indoor for outdoor relief, and the making the former as repulsive as possible to able-bodied paupers, had caused considerable reduction in the rates at Southwell, and the system in operation there had been copied with similar results in various parishes throughout the country. The select committee of the House of Commons on agriculture in its report pointed attention to the value of Becher's system, which was also favourably mentioned by the 'Quarterly Review.' In 1834, during the official investigation which resulted in the new poor law, Becher issued a second edition of this work, with a new introduction. In 1837, he apparently converted, on at least one point, Finlaison, his former antagonist, and there appeared 'Rules of the Northampton Equitable Friendly Institution, and tables calculated from actual returns of sickness, old age, and death, by the Rev. J. T. Becher, M.A., and J. Finlaison, Esq., Actuary of the National Debt.' Becher died at Hill House, Southwell, on 3 Jan. 1848, aged 78.

[Becher's writings; Welch's List of the Queen's Scholars of St. Peter's College, Westminster (new edition, 1852); Gent Mag. for April 1848.]  BECK. [See .]  BECK, CAVE (1623–1706?), writer on pasigraphy, son of John Beck, baker, of the parish of St. John, Clerkenwell, was born in London in 1623. He was educated in a private school kept in London by Mr. Brathwayte, and on 13 June 1638 was admitted a pensioner of St. John's College, Cambridge, He took the degree of B.A. in 1641, and subsequently that of M.A., being incorporated in the latter at Oxford, 17 Oct. 1643. In 1655 he was master of the free grammar school at Ipswich; in 1657, however, Robert Woodside was retained as master, during the pleasure of the corporation, in the room of Beck, who perhaps resigned that situation on being instituted to St. Helen's, or Monksoham, of which he was also rector. In 1662 he licensed to the perpetual curacy of St. Margaret's, Ipswich, and in the same year he was presented by the king, by lapse, to the rectory of St. Helen's, Ipswich, with St. Clement's annexed. We have been unable to ascertain the precise date of the death of this ingenious scholar. He was certainly alive in 1697, and William Ray, who was instituted to Monksoham in 1706, was probably his immediate successor.

He wrote an extremely curious and interesting work entitled 'The Universal Character, by which all Nations in the World may understand one another's Conceptions, Reading out of one Common Writing their own Mother Tongues. An Invention of General Use, the Practise whereof may be Attained in two Hours' space. Observing the Grammatical Directions. Which Character is so contrived, that it may be Spoken as well as Written,' Lond. 1657, 8vo. The work was also published the same year in the French language. It is dedicated to Nathanael and Francis Bacon, esquires, 'patronis suis colendissimis.' The characters chosen by Beck are the ten Arabic numerals, which he proposes to pronounce aun, too, tray, for or for, fai, sic, sen, at, nin, o. The combinations of these characters, intended to express all the radical words in any language, are to be arranged in numerical order, from unity to 10,000, which number he thinks sufficient to express all words in general use; and to each number is to be annexed the word in any language, as for example English, of which it is a symbol, thus forming a numerical vocabulary. The same words are also to be arranged in another vocabulary in the alphabetical order of the language they belong to; thus each