Francis William Lionel Collings Beaumont | |
---|---|
Nickname(s) | Buster |
Born | 6 August 1903 |
Died | 4 May 1941 Liverpool, England |
(aged 37)
Buried at | Liverpool, England |
Service/branch | Royal Air Force |
Years of service | 1923–1928, 1939–1941 |
Rank | Flight Lieutenant |
Battles/wars | Second World War |
Relations | Mary Lawson, wife; Sibyl Hathaway, mother; Dudley Beaumont, father; Michael Beaumont, son |
Other work | Film producer |
Francis William Lionel Collings Beaumont (6 August 1903 – 4 May 1941), also known as F. W. L. C. Beaumont or “Buster" Beaumont, was the heir to the Seigneur of Sark, a Royal Air Force officer, film producer and the husband of actress Mary Lawson. He and Lawson were killed in 1941 during the Liverpool Blitz.
Francis William Lionel Collings Beaumont was born on 6 August 1903. He was the second child of Dudley and Sibyl Beaumont, daughter of William Frederick Collings, who ruled the island of Sark as seigneur (feudal lord). Sark is a self-governing territory that is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy. The island has been called one of the last feudal outposts in Western Europe, a term used by Beaumont's mother to describe the island's political system. Beaumont was named after his grandfather, William Frederick Collings, the 20th Seigneur of Sark, but was often called by his nickname, Buster. On his father's side of the family, Beaumont descended from a line of notable British Army officers. His father served in France during the First World War and died in 1918 during the Spanish flu pandemic. His grandfather, William Spencer Beaumont, was a captain in the 14th King's Hussars cavalry regiment, while his great-great grandfather, John Thomas Barber Beaumont was a well known miniature painter who in 1803, during the Napoleonic Wars, raised The Duke of Cumberland's Sharp Shooters corps.