John Somerville Beaumont

The fifth and youngest son of James W Beaumont and Emily Prentice Beaumont, John Somerville Beaumont was born at Wilmslow Cheshire and was a graduate of  Manchester University School of Architecture. 

In 1911 J.S. Beaumont, was appointed by the Gilchrist Trustees to the Gilchrist Studentship at the British School in Rome. Here  he also collaborated with the other new scholar of 1911, George Esselmont Gordon Leith (qv), the first holder of the Herbert Baker Scholarship for South African architects (1911‑13). For the next two years his time was spent chiefly on Roman research, lecturing to the MSA on the architecture of Imperial Rome and exhibiting his drawings of the Forum of Nerva.

John S Beaumont volunteered for active servic  at the outset of war and was appointed a temporary Lieutenant in The Manchester Regiment, 16th Battalion (1st City) by the end of 1914. By 1917 he held the rank of temporary Captain on the General List. He was awarded the Military Cross (London Gazette, 1 January 1918) although the circumstances of the award are unknown.

In 1919 he entered into partnership with his father and brother under the style of J W Beaumont and Sons, although he did not become an Associate of the RIBA until 1922. The partnership continued until the formal retirement of J W Beaumont in 1930 and the death of William S Beaumont in 1943.

After the Second World War John Somerville Beaumont, took Raymond Cowling and James Harold Cheetham (retired 1964) into partnership with offices in Manchester, Sheffield and Warrington under the style J W Beaumont and Sons. The firm carried out some of the early post-war building at the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield in addition to new department stores in Sheffield.  He was President of the Manchester Society of Architects 1945-1947.