| Thomas Alcock Beck | |
| Birth Date: | 1795 5, df=y |
| Birth Place: | Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England |
| Death Date: | [1] |
| Death Place: | Esthwaite Lodge, Hawkshead,[2] England |
| Nationality: | English |
| Known For: | Author of Annales Furnesienses |
| Occupation: | Author |
Thomas Alcock Beck (1795–1846) was an English author known for writing Annales Furnesienses (1844), a history of Furness Abbey, which was dedicated by permission to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and which contained twenty-six steel engravings and several woodcuts.[2] Beck was a long-term resident of Hawkshead in Lancashire, where his parents had lived at The Grove. He used a wheelchair for much of his life, being unable to walk due to a spinal complaint. At one time he had attended Hawkshead Grammar School and he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1814, but left without taking a degree.
Around 1819, he commenced the building of his regency mansion Esthwaite Lodge (subsequently a youth hostel), to the design of George Webster. The grounds were specially laid out with easy gradients for his wheelchair.[3] Besides other antiquarian interests, he also edited Dr. William Close's unfinished work An Itinerary of Furness.
On 25 April 1838 he married Elizabeth Fell of Hawkshead[4] (formerly of Ulverston), having obtained a special license to allow the ceremony to take place within his own home.[5]