Harold Beauchamp

Sir Harold Beauchamp (15 November 1858 – 5 October 1938) was a New Zealand banker, and is remembered as the father of author Katherine Mansfield.

Born in Ararat, Victoria, Australia on 15 November 1858 to Arthur Beauchamp and Mary Elizabeth Stanley, the family moved to Nelson in 1861 and then Picton. His father successfully contested the 1866 election for the Picton electorate but resigned in 1867, sold up and moved to isolated Beatrix Bay in Pelorus Sound.

After they moved to Wanganui in 1869, Harold attended Wanganui Collegiate School and left at 14 to work for his father's general merchant and auctioneering business. He moved to Wellington and did well in business. He married in 1884 Annie Burnell Dyer, daughter of Margaret Isabella Mansfield and the late Joseph Dyer; his mother-in-law moved in with him. The first family home where Kathleen Mansfield was born was in Thorndon; in 1893 they moved to a larger home, Chesney Wold, in Karori. He became a partner of the business in 1889, and a member of the Wellington Harbour Board in 1895. A personal friend of Richard Seddon, he was appointed to the board of the Bank of New Zealand in 1898, rising to chairman and remaining on the board until 1936.

As a member of the 1901 Royal Commission on Federation he advised against New Zealand joining the Australian federation. Between 1903 and 1906 Beauchamp's three daughters attended Queen's College, London; when he returned to London to collect them, he attended the Sixth Congress of Federation of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire and was received by King Edward VII.

After their return, Beauchamp's personal life took several turns for the worse. His father Arthur died in Nelson in 1910. His only son Leslie was killed in the war in October 1915. His mother Mary died in 1917. His wife Annie's health deteriorated and she died in Wellington on 8 August 1918 aged 54y. He became estranged from his daughter Kathleen, who returned to Europe to find fame as Katherine Mansfield, but whose writings did not paint him in an overly favourable light.

Beauchamp was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 1923 New Year Honours. In 1935, he was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal.

In his later years, he travelled frequently between London and Wellington and his reports of the trading outlook for New Zealand's primary exports widely reported.

He died in Wellington, on 5 October 1938. He left substantial gifts to the National Art Gallery.

Harold's brother Harry Lomax Beauchamp farmed at Otaki for many years and died in 1939.