Henry Beasley

Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mountifort Beasley DSO (1875 – 14 December 1949), known as 'Pops', was a British Army officer and a leading contract bridge personality in the early days of the game.

Born in Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh, India, he was educated at Bedford School, and entered the Royal Military Academy (Woolwich) on leaving school. Beasley was gazetted to the Royal Artillery in 1896. He served in India, Burma and China, and took part in the Relief of Peking after the Boxer Rebellion. He served in WWI on the staff of the Anzac Corps. He was thrice mentioned in despatches and awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). After the war he served in Germany on the Disarmament Commission. He was an interpreter in French, German and Hindustani.

Pops had played all forms of bridge from the days of bridge–whist and auction bridge. He wrote his first book on this game in 1906, London Bridge, which "started the bridge craze in all the fashionable clubs of that day" [Beasley]. Like many of the early contract bridge players, he had been an expert auction bridge player in the 1920s. In domestic bridge he was a leading organiser. He had been a member of Almacks club since 1901, and later was a co-founder and Chairman of two leading London card clubs – Crockford's (in St James's Street) and the Hamilton Club (in Hamilton Place). He was also a leading player in the 1930s, winning the Gold Cup in 1933, and playing in several international events. He was an author and bridge columnist, and the originator of a bidding system named after him.

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