George Andrew Beck (28 May 1904 – 13 September 1978) was an English

prelate A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Minister (Christianity), Christian clergy who is an Ordinary (church officer), ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which me ...

who served in the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

Archbishop of Liverpool The Metropolitan Archbishop of Liverpool is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool and Metropolitan bishop, metropolitan of the Province of Liverpool (also known as the Northern Province) in England. Th ...

from 29 January 1964 to 7 February 1976.

Life

Beck was born in

Streatham Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. Streatham was in Surrey ...

in south London. He was educated at Clapham College and later at the Assumptionist College of St Michael at Hitchin in Hertfordshire. In 1927, he was ordained priest in the order of the

Assumptionists The Assumptionists, formally known as the Congregation of the Augustinians of the Assumption (; abbreviated AA), is a worldwide congregation of Catholic priests and brothers. It is active in many countries. The French branch played a major rol ...

(or Augustinians of the Assumption). He was headmaster of the Becket School in Nottingham and in 1948, he was appointed

coadjutor The term "coadjutor" (literally "co-assister" in Latin) is a title qualifier indicating that the holder shares the office with another person, with powers equal to the other in all but formal order of precedence. These include: * Coadjutor bishop ...

Bishop of Brentwood and

titular bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox an ...

of Tigias. He succeeded as Bishop of Brentwood in 1951 was subsequently

Bishop of Salford The Bishop of Salford is the Ordinary (church officer), ordinary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford, Catholic Diocese of Salford in the Province of Liverpool, England. With the gradual abolition of the legal restrictions on the activities o ...

from 1955 to 1964. As Bishop of Salford he continued the substantial expansion of new parishes and schools begun by his predecessor, Henry Vincent Marshall, to implement the Education Act. Beck was an educational expert, and successfully led negotiations with successive governments to better the position of Catholic schools across the country. He attended all four sessions of the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...

from 1962 until 1965. In 1964 he was appointed Archbishop of Liverpool, from which he resigned at the age of 71 in 1976. Archbishop Beck Catholic Sports College in the Walton area of Liverpool is named after him.

References

1904 births 1978 deaths 20th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in the United Kingdom People from Streatham Assumptionists Roman Catholic bishops of Brentwood Roman Catholic archbishops of Liverpool Participants in the Second Vatican Council Roman Catholic bishops of Salford British Roman Catholic archbishops {{UK-RC-archbishop-stub