Richard Beaumont owned the London gun and rifle maker James Purdey & Sons from 1949 until 1994, and was its chairman from 1971.
Richard Blackett Beaumont was born in 1926. He was the second son of the 2nd Viscount Allendale, and his childhood was spent on the family’s Northumberland estate and at its home in Mayfair. For a time the Duke and Duchess of York, and the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, were next door neighbours.
Beaumont left Eton in 1943, aged 17, to join the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. After basic training at HMS King Arthur in Skegness he joined the training cruiser Dauntless at Rosyth, as an ordinary seaman. He often recalled how Eton had been a sound preparation for life on the lower deck.
From Dauntless he went for officer training at HMS King Alfred in Hove, then served as midshipman in the destroyer Comet. He finished his RNVR service in Hong Kong in 1947 with the rank of sub-lieutenant.
He returned home via India, where he spent a year as personal assistant to Sir Walter Monckton, then acting for the Nizam of Hyderabad in delicate negotiations over partition. Back in London in 1948 he took a job as a shipping clerk in Billingsgate. In 1949 he was telephoned by his father, Lord Allendale, who said: “Uncle Hughie (his mother’s brother, Sir Hugh Seely) has given you Purdey.”
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“What’s Purdey?” was his response.
“’It’s a well-known gun shop,” his father replied. “Uncle Hughie thought it might be rather fun, but you don’t have to go into it if you don’t want to.”
Soon after this exchange Beaumont met Tom Purdey, the managing director, who had sold the company to Sir Hugh and his brother Sir Victor Seely in 1946. In his book Purdey’s — The Guns and the Family (1984) Beaumont described his first visit to the Long Room.
“Tom was charming. He told me about the firm, the families who made the guns, and his own family, and introduced me to Harry Lawrence, the factory manager. It all sounded so wonderful I decided that this was what I wanted to do, which is how I came to be associated with the great firm of James Purdey & Sons and entered a career so entirely different from that which I had planned.”
Before doing so, however, Beaumont served for two years, until 1955, as aide-de-camp to the last British High Commissioner of Malaysia, Sir Donald MacGillivray. He then joined Purdey, taking over from Tom Purdey in 1956, with Sir Hugh Seely, now Lord Sherwood, as chairman.
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Over the next 40 years Beaumont demonstrated an astute business brain and a fierce determination to maintain traditional gunmaking skills. These kept Purdey afloat throughout the dauntingly difficult business climate of the 1970s, coping with high inflation, the loss of skilled craftsmen, unacceptably long delivery times and having to persuade customers to pay prices far higher than when they had placed their orders. Any of these problems could have brought the firm down, but it was saved by Beaumont’s tenacity and the loyalty and affection in which he was held by his craftsmen and staff.
For 23 years he was ably supported by his wife Lavinia, whom he married in 1971. She managed the clothing and accessories side of Purdey, transforming it from a sideline to a significantly successful part of the business.
Beaumont retired after a heart attack, having sold Purdey to the Geneva-based luxury goods group Richemont. His family connection with Purdey continues through his cousin Nigel Beaumont, the company’s chairman, whom he had brought in as a trainee gunmaker in 1977.
Richard Beaumont was elected a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers in 1950, served on its court for more than 30 years, and was master twice, in 1968 and 1984. He was invested as a Commander, Royal Victorian Order, in 1996.
He is survived by his wife, Lavinia (n?e Keppel).
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The Hon Richard Beaumont, CVO, former proprietor of Purdey & Sons, was born on August 13, 1926. He died on January 8, 2010, aged 83