Alice Mary Beech

A carte-de-visite portrait of Alice Mary Beech (1850-1926), later the Honourable Mrs George Campbell Napier.

Born in 1850 at The Shawe (also called Booth Hall) near Cheadle in Staffordshire, she was the first child and only daughter of landowner James Beech and his wife Emily Charlotte née Madocks.

She appears on the 1861 census, aged 10, living with her parents and three younger brothers (a fourth was born in 1862) at Brandon Lodge in Warwickshire. Also present on the night of the census were a governess and sixteen servants, including a butler, two footmen, a coachman and a groom, with various gamekeepers and gardeners living nearby.

On 7 February 1882 she married Major George Campbell Napier of the Bengal Staff Corps, a younger son of General Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala. Her husband eventually rose to the rank of Colonel in the Indian Army and was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE). Their marriage produced a daughter and a son; the latter was killed during the First World War.

In 1901 Alice was living with her widowed mother at 2 Eaton Place, London. Also present on the night of the census were her son Rupert and nine servants, including a butler and a footman.

In 1911 the Napiers were living at 34 Grosvenor Place in Belgravia with their unmarried daughter Sibyl and seven servants, including two footmen.

Colonel the Honourable Napier died in 1914. Had he lived longer, he would have become 3rd Baron Napier in 1921, when his older brother died without male issue. The title passed instead to his younger brother, James.

The Honourable Alice Mary Napier ‘of Old Surrey Hall, East Grinstead,’ died, aged 75, on 23 March 1926 at 59 Cadogan Square, Chelsea. She left an estate valued at £21,450.

Their daughter Sibyl never married. She died at a nursing home Cheltenham in 1962, leaving an estate valued at £136,547.

Photographed by E. Defonds-Bousseton of Paris.