Margaret Beck (later Margaret Lockwood; 9 January 1952 – 21 May 2023) was a

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...

player from

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

who ranked among the world's best during most of the 1970s.

Early and personal life

Beck was born in

Whitehaven Whitehaven is a town and civil parish in the Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. It is a port on the north-west coast, and lies outside the Lake District National parks of England and Wales, National Park. ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

. She married Ron Lockwood on 20 December 1975 in near London.

Playing career

An exceptional junior talent, she represented

and won women's singles gold medal at the

1970 British Commonwealth Games The 1970 British Commonwealth Games were held in Edinburgh, Scotland, from 16 to 25 July 1970. This was the first time the name British Commonwealth Games was adopted, the first time metric units rather than imperial units were used in all eve ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, Scotland, while still in her teens. In 1973, Beck won the women's singles at the

All-England Championships The Wimbledon Championships, commonly called Wimbledon, is a tennis tournament organised by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in collaboration with the Lawn Tennis Association annually in Wimbledon, London. It is chronologically the ...

, which, aside from the international team championships (

Uber Cup The Uber Cup, sometimes called the World Women's Team Championships, is a major international badminton competition contested by women's national badminton teams. First held in 1956–1957 and contested at three year intervals, it has been contes ...

and

Thomas Cup The Thomas Cup, sometimes referred as World Men's Team Championships, is an international badminton competition among teams representing member nations of the Badminton World Federation (BWF), the sport's global governing body. The championships h ...

), was then the world's most prestigious tournament. She shared the All-England women's doubles title with

Gillian Gilks Gillian M. Gilks (formerly Gillian Perrin, and later Gillian Goodwin; born 20 June 1950) is an English former badminton player who won numerous major titles in all three events (singles, doubles, and mixed doubles) between the late 1960s and t ...

in 1974. She won singles at the World Invitation Tournament, a forerunner of the

BWF World Championships The BWF World Championships is a badminton tournament organized by the Badminton World Federation. It's the most prestigious badminton competition, offering the most ranking points, along with the Summer Olympics badminton events introduced in ...

, that was held in Jakarta, Indonesia in 1974. In 1974 she represented England and won a gold and silver medals in the doubles and singles, at the

1974 British Commonwealth Games The 1974 British Commonwealth Games () were held in Christchurch, New Zealand, from 24 January to 2 February 1974. The bid vote was held in Edinburgh at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games. The event was officially named "the friendly games". T ...

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. After marrying in 1975 she competed under her married name of Margaret Lockwood and reached the singles and doubles final at the 1976 All England Open Badminton Championships. Her other international singles titles included the

European Badminton Championships The European Badminton Championships is a tournament organized by the Badminton Europe (BE). It represents the highest level of continental competition in European badminton, and the winners of each event are recognised as the European champions. ...

(1972), and the

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

(1975), Irish (1971),

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

(1973),

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

(1972, 1974), and South African (1976) Opens. She also won five English National singles titles (against opposition that included

), and a dozen or more international doubles titles. Noted for her rigorous fitness regimen, she developed a problem with her knee which was seriously aggravated during the first

World Badminton Championships The BWF World Championships is a badminton tournament organized by the Badminton World Federation. It's the most prestigious badminton competition, offering the most ranking points, along with the Summer Olympics badminton events introduced in ...

in 1977. The singles and doubles bronze medals that she earned there would be her last. Despite surgeries and attempted rehabilitation she never played serious competitive badminton again.

Achievements

World Championships

Commonwealth Games

European Championships

European Junior Championships

International tournaments

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beck, Margaret 1952 births 2023 deaths English female badminton players Badminton players at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games Badminton players at the 1974 British Commonwealth Games Commonwealth Games gold medallists for England Commonwealth Games gold medallists in badminton Commonwealth Games silver medallists for England Commonwealth Games silver medallists in badminton Medallists at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games Medallists at the 1974 British Commonwealth Games 20th-century English sportswomen