| Honorific Prefix: | The Honourable |
| Sir Gervase Beckett | |
| Constituency Mp: | Leeds North |
| Parliament: | United Kingdom |
| Term Start: | 1923 |
| Term End: | 1929 |
| Constituency Mp2: | Scarborough and Whitby |
| Parliament2: | United Kingdom |
| Term Start2: | 1918 |
| Term End2: | 1922 |
| Constituency Mp3: | Whitby |
| Parliament3: | United Kingdom |
| Term Start3: | 1906 |
| Term End3: | 1918 |
| Birth Name: | William Gervase Beckett-Denison |
| Birth Date: | 14 January 1866 |
| Birth Place: | Meanwood, West Riding of Yorkshire, England |
| Death Place: | London, England |
Sir William Gervase Beckett, 1st Baronet (born William Gervase Beckett-Denison; 14 January 1866 – 24 August 1937) was a British banker and Conservative politician.
Beckett was the son of William Beckett-Denison MP. He was educated at Eton College and joined the family banking business, Beckett & Co, in Leeds. After the firm was taken over by the Westminster Bank he joined the bank's board. He was also chairman of the Yorkshire Post and proprietor and editor of the Saturday Review. His elder brother, Ernest, succeeded his uncle as 2nd Baron Grimthorpe in 1905 and Beckett was granted the precedence of a baron's son and the right to use the style "The Honourable".
He was elected at the 1906 general election as Member of Parliament for Whitby. When that constituency was abolished for the 1918 general election, he was returned for the new Scarborough and Whitby constituency. He did not contest the 1922 general election, but returned to the House of Commons at the 1923 general election as Member of Parliament for Leeds North, and held that seat until he retired from Parliament at the 1929 election.
Beckett was commissioned a Lieutenant in the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, Green Howards in 1884, but resigned his commission in 1886. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Yorkshire Hussars in 1888. He was promoted Lieutenant in 1895 and Captain in 1898, and resigned his commission in 1901 During the First World War he returned to service as Assistant Military Secretary of Northern Command from 1914 to 1916. He was Assistant Director of the Department of War Trade from 1918 to 1919.
He married the Honourable Mabel Theresa Duncombe (1877–1913) the daughter of William Duncombe, Viscount Helmsley. They had four daughters:
Secondly he married Lady Marjorie Blanche Eva Greville, daughter of Francis Richard Charles Guy Greville, 5th Earl of Warwick and Frances Evelyn Maynard, on 1 November 1917. Lady Greville was the widow of Charles Duncombe, 2nd Earl of Feversham, his first wife's brother. This marriage produced one son:
The publisher Sir Rupert Hart-Davis (1907-1999) was legally the son of stockbroker Richard Hart-Davis and his wife Sybil, daughter of the surgeon Sir Alfred Cooper; by the time of his conception, the Hart-Davises were estranged, and Sybil had numerous lovers at that period. Hart-Davis considered Beckett to be the most likely candidate for his natural father.[1] [2] [3]
Beckett was created a baronet in the 1921 Birthday Honours, as Sir Gervase Beckett, 1st Baronet Beckett, of Kirkdale Manor in the County of Yorkshire.