Helen Audrey Beecham (21 July 1915 – 31 January 1989) was an English poet, teacher and historian. She was born in

Weaverham Weaverham is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire in England. Just off the A49, it is just to the west of Northwich and south of the River Weaver, and has a population o ...

in 1915. Her grandfather was Sir Joseph Beecham, 1st Baronet, eldest son of

Thomas Beecham Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Roya ...

, who had created a fortune with Beecham's Pills. Her uncle was the conductor Sir

and her father devoted time to spending his inheritance. She took PPE at

Somerville College Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, ...

in Oxford. She left with a second class degree and went to live in Paris in the group that included

Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...

. She made a lasting friendship with the writers

Lawrence Durrell Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell. Born in India to British colonial par ...

and Anais Nin. Beecham left Oxford and took a job at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

in 1950; she lectured and headed Nightingale Hall.Rachel Trickett, ‘Beecham, (Helen) Audrey (1915–1989)’, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 201
accessed 13 March 2017
/ref> One anecdote tells of how when faced with demonstrating students intent on occupying one of the buildings she hid the weapons but supplied them with toilet paper. She memorably noted that revolutionaries frequently forgot the loo rolls.
John Izbicki, 1999, ''The Independent'', Retrieved 13 March 2017 Sir

Maurice Bowra Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra, (; 8 April 1898 – 4 July 1971) was an English classical scholar, literary critic and academic, known for his wit. He was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1970, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the Univers ...

, Warden of Wadham and

Vice-Chancellor of Oxford The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford is the chief executive and leader of the University of Oxford. The following people have been vice-chancellors of the University of Oxford (formally known as The Right Worshipful the Vice-Chancel ...

was engaged to her. Bowra, a

homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...

, explained his engagement by saying "buggers can't be choosers". Christopher Hollis, ''Oxford in the Twenties'' (1976), p. 22. "Allegedly," according to Mitchell in ''Maurice Bowra: A Life'' (2009), p. 144 In 1957, she published her first book of poetry, ''The Coast of Barbary''.

Death

Helen Audrey Beecham died in

Churchill Hospital The Churchill Hospital is a teaching hospital in Oxford, England. It is managed by the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. History The original hospital on the site was built in 1940 with the intention of providing medical aid to ...

, Oxford, England in 1989, aged 73, from asthma.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beecham, Audrey 1915 births 1989 deaths People from Northwich English women poets Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford 20th-century English poets 20th-century English women writers 20th-century English educators 20th-century English historians Respiratory disease deaths in England Deaths from asthma English women non-fiction writers British women historians 20th-century women educators