Francis Joseph Edmond (De Beaurepaire) Beaurepaire K.B. (1891 - 1956)

Born 13 May 1891 in Melbourne, Victoria.

Husband of Myra Gertrude (McKay) Beaurepaire — married 14 Jul 1915 in Presbyterian Church Middle Park Victoria

Died 29 May 1956 at age 65 in Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia

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Biography

Frank (De Beaurepaire) Beaurepaire K.B. is Notable.

Frank represented Australia at the 1908-1920 Olympic Games

Frank De Beaurepaire was the son of Francis Edmund DE BEAUREPAIRE and Mary Edith INMAN and was born on 13 May 1891 in Melbourne, Victoria in what would later become Australia.

As Frank BEAUREPAIRE he married Myra McKAY in 1915 at the Presbyterian Church, Albert Park. A son and a daughter were born of the marriage.

At the outbreak of World War I Beaurepaire enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and was posted as a second lieutenant, but became medically unfit after a serious appendicitis attack. In 1916 he went overseas as a Young Men's Christian Association commissioner, serving with the 1st and 3rd Divisions in England and France, and gaining warm commendation from Sir John Monash for his work. He was invalided out in 1918, after an attack of trench fever.

He participated in several Olympic Games, from the 1908 Summer Olympics in London to the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, winning three silver and three bronze medals.

In 1922, he was awarded the Royal Humane Society Gold Medal and 550 pounds, a significant sum in that era, after assisting another lifesaver, Jack Chalmers[2] in rescuing a shark attack victim at Coogee, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney. He used this to start Beaurepaires, a tyres, wheels, batteries business, which had assets worth more than 8 million pounds at his death. The business now has over 230 stores in Australia. He attended the 1932 Summer Olympics as a swimming official and judge.

In 1928 he won a by-election for Gipps Ward and became a Melbourne city councillor. In 1940-42 Beaurepaire was Lord Mayor of Melbourne, and was especially active in raising wartime patriotic and charitable funds. He was knighted in 1942, and in the same year was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council, where he sat until 1952. He was an unsuccessful United Australia Party candidate for the Australian Senate in 1943. His political views were generally conservative, but he was more interested in fostering particular projects than in ideological positions.

He passed away in 1956.^[1][2]

Burial: Springvale Botanical Cemetery, Springvale, Greater Dandenong City, Victoria, Australia^[3].

In 1967, Frank Beaurepaire was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, in Fort Lauderdale, USA.

Frank (De Beaurepaire) Beaurepaire K.B. is Notable.

Frank (De Beaurepaire) Beaurepaire K.B. is Notable.

Frank (De Beaurepaire) Beaurepaire K.B. is Notable.

Francis was born in May 1891 in Melbourne in tye Colony of Victoria in what was soon to become Australia. He was the eldest son of Francis Edmund de Beaurepaire, a sailor, tram-conductor, trader, and later a hotel proprietor, and his wife Mary Edith (née Inman).

Sir Francis "Frank" Joseph Edmund Beaurepaire was a champion Australian distance freestyle swimmer from the early 1900s to the 1920s. He won three silver and three bronze medals, from the 1908 Summer Olympics in London through to the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Sir Frank Beaurepaire was also a distinguished politician, serving for ten years in the Victorian Legislative Council and also as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne.

And Sir Frank Beaurepaire is also remembered for building the multimillion-dollar tyre business empire: Beaurepaires and Olympic Tyres.

In July 1915 he married Myra Gertrude McKay, a daughter of newspaper proprietor Nathaniel Breakey (known as N. B.) McKay, and a niece of wealthy industrialist H. V. McKay, at the Presbyterian Church, Albert Park. They became parents to a son and a daughter..

He passed away in 1956.

Sources

1. ↑ Victorian Death certificate # 6198 1956
2. ↑ PROV File #511/397 - VPRS 28/P4, unit 1311; VPRS 7591/P3, unit 154
3. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (www.findagrave.com/memorial/202609413/sir_francis-joseph_edmund-beaurepaire : accessed 07 August 2021), memorial page for Sir Francis Joseph Edmund “Frank” Beaurepaire (13 May 1891–29 May 1956), Find a Grave Memorial ID 202609413, citing Springvale Botanical Cemetery, Springvale, Greater Dandenong City, Victoria, Australia ; Maintained by Peterborough K (contributor 46537737) .

• Wikipedia Entry for Sir Frank Beaurepaire
• Australian Dictionary of Biography for Sir Frank Beaurepaire
• International Swimming Hall of Fame
• Sport Australia Hall of Fame

• J. R. Poynter, Beaurepaire, Sir Francis Joseph (Frank) (1891–1956), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/beaurepaire-sir-francis-joseph-frank-5175/text8695, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 9 July 2022.

• Frank Beaurepaire from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. first accessed online on the 9th of July, 2022 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Beaurepaire

• Sir Frank Beaurepaire - Swimming from the SPORT AUSTRALIA HALL OF FAME first accessed online on the 9th of July, 2022 at: https://sahof.org.au/hall-of-fame-member/frank-beaurepaire/

• Created a Knight Bachelor (Imperial) in the 1942 Honours List

• International Swimming Hall of Fame

• Sir Frank Joseph Edmund Beaurepaire from the PARLIAMENT OF VICTORIA'S RE-MEMBER (FORMER MEMBERS) website. fist accessed online on the 9th of July, 2022 at: https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/about/people-in-parliament/re-member/details/24/1016

• 1916 Pioneer Exhibition Game from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. first accessed online on the 28th of June, 2022 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1916_Pioneer_Exhibition_Game

• Find a Grave, database and images accessed 9 July 2022, memorial page for Sir Francis Joseph Edmund “Frank” Beaurepaire (13 May 1891–29 May 1956), Find a Grave Memorial ID Find A Grave: Memorial #202609413, citing Springvale Botanical Cemetery, Springvale, Greater Dandenong City, Victoria, Australia ; Maintained by Kris 'Peterborough K' Peterson (contributor 46537737) . (note there is no gravestone photograph as yet)