Peter Beazley

Peter George Beazley CBE (9 June 1922 – 23 December 2004) was a British businessman and Conservative Party politician, who worked for Imperial Chemical Industries for over thirty years. He went on to serve for fifteen years as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP).

Beazley was educated at Highgate School, and then went up to St John's College, Oxford where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. In 1942, on leaving Oxford during the Second World War, he joined the Rifle Brigade, with whom he served in North Africa, Italy and Austria. He reached the rank of Captain.

Demobilised in 1947, Beazley then joined Imperial Chemical Industries as a Manager. In his early career with the company he was often stationed abroad, in Germany for seven years, and also in Portugal, Belgium and South Africa. He was promoted to be a General Manager, a divisional board director and eventually Vice Chairman of the company. He was also a Managing Director of some of ICI's associated companies. Due to his foreign travels Beazley had learned to speak four foreign languages well. He was a Research Fellow of the Royal Institution of International Affairs in 1977-78.

In 1978 Beazley retired from ICI, having been selected as Conservative Party candidate for Bedfordshire for the 1979 European Parliament election. This constituency was considered a marginal before the election, as it included Labour-voting towns such as Luton and Bedford as well as Hemel Hempstead. However, with the help of the collapse in the Labour vote at the European Parliament election, Beazley won with a majority of 53,600.

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