Thomas Billis Beach

Thomas Miller Beach (who used the alias Major Henri Le Caron) (September 26, 1841 – April 1, 1894) was an English spy.

His services enabled the British Government to take measures which led to the fiasco of the Canadian invasion of 1870 and Kiel's surrender in 1871, and he supplied full details concerning the various Irish-American associations, in which he himself was a prominent member. His infiltration of the Fenian Brotherhood and subsequent reports and espionage greatly aided in upholding the British Empire in Canada from the Fenian raids which took place from 1866 - 1871.

For twenty-five years he lived in Detroit, Michigan and other places in the United States, paying occasional visits to Europe, and all the time carrying his life in his hand.

Beach was born in Colchester, England. He had an adventurous character, and when nineteen years old went to Paris, where he found employment in business connected with America.

Infected with the excitement of the American Civil War, he crossed the Atlantic in 1861 and enlisted in the Northern army, taking the name of Henri Le Caron.

In 1864, he married a young lady who had helped him to escape from some Confederate marauders; and by the end of the war he rose to the rank of major. In 1865, through a companion in arms named John O'Neill, he was brought into contact with Fenianism, and having learnt of the Fenian plot against Canada (the Fenian raids), he mentioned the designs when writing home to his father in England. Beach's father told his local M.P., who in turn told the Home Secretary, and the latter asked Beach to arrange for further information.

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