Hugh Beach

Sir Hugh Beach
Born	20 May 1923
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1941–1981
Rank	General
Commands held	Staff College, Camberley
Battles/wars	World War II
Awards	Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath Military Cross

General Sir William Gerald Hugh Beach GBE, KCB, MC (born 20 May 1923) is a former British Army officer who, in retirement, researches and advises on defence policy, arms control and disarmament, with an active interest in promoting concerns about ethical issues of peace and war.

Early life

Beach was educated at Winchester College, Peterhouse, Cambridge (MA 1961) and Edinburgh University (M.Sc. 1971).^[1]

Military career

Beach joined the Corps of Royal Engineers in August 1941. He saw active service in France in 1944 and in Java in 1946. During the 1960s he commanded an engineer regiment and an infantry brigade, both at Osnabrück in Germany. He was director of army staff duties at the Ministry of Defence from 1971 to 1973, commandant of the Staff College, Camberley from 1974 to 1975 and Deputy Commander-in-Chief UK Land Forces from 1976 to 1977 before becoming Master-General of the Ordnance (Army Board member for Procurement) from 1977 to 1981.^[1]

Later life

Retiring from the army in 1981, he served as warden of St. George's House, Windsor Castle from 1981 to 1986, vice-Lord Lieutenant of Greater London from 1981 to 1987, Chief Royal Engineer from 1982 to 1987 and member of the Security Commission from 1982 to 1991. He chaired Ministry of Defence Study Groups on Censorship in War in 1983 and Education in the Army in 1984. He was director of the Council for Arms Control from 1986 to 1989. In the 1990s he was chairman of the governors of Gordon's and Bedales schools, and also chaired the boards of the Church Army and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

He is currently a member of the board or executive committee of: the Council for Christian Approaches to Defence,^[2] the Centre for Defence Studies (King's College London), the Verification Technology Information Centre (VERTIC),^[3] the International Security Information Service (ISIS),^[4] and of the British Pugwash Group.^[5] He lectures and has contributed chapters to over two dozen books as well as publishing a number of monographs, articles and book reviews. In 1999 he co-authored, with Nadine Gurr, a book on British nuclear weapons policy^[6] and, in 2001, a briefing paper on cluster bombs,^[7]

In January 2009, The Times newspaper published a joint letter from Field Marshal Lord Bramall, General Lord Ramsbotham and General Beach arguing that the UK government should fund more realistic military needs rather than perpetuate its Trident programme,^[8] arguing that:

Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently, or are likely to, face — particularly international terrorism; and the more you analyse them the more unusable they appear.

Honours

He holds an honorary Doctorate of Civil Laws from the University of Kent in Canterbury (1990). He is an honorary fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge and of the Chartered Institute of Building Service Engineers, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute.^[9]

References

1. Beach, Hugh (May 1986). "British Defence Policy and the South Atlantic". South Atlantic Council Occasional Papers. City University. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
2. Council for Christian Approaches to Defence and Disarmament
3. VERTIC
4. ISIS
5. Pugwash Conferences on science and world affairs
6. Beach H and Gurr N Flattering the Passions, Or, The Bomb and Britain's Bid for a World Role
7. Beach H Cluster Bombs: the Case for New Controls, ISIS Europe, May 2001
8. UK does not need a nuclear deterrent The Times, 16 January 2009
9. Hugh Beach – A Memoir (ed) David Evans, (W. G. H. Beach, London, 2003)