Master builder and TD, of Dublin. James Walter Beckett, a son of the building contractor JAMES BECKETT JAMES BECKETT and his wife Frances (née Horner) and an elder brother of GEORGE FRANCIS BECKETT GEORGE FRANCIS BECKETT , was born on 5 July 1875 and was educated at Rathmines School. He served an apprenticeship with the quantity surveyors Patterson & Kempster before entering the family firm, of which he became head in 1915. During his long career in the building industry he served as president of the Builders' Federation and, like his father, of the Dublin Master Builders' Association. He was elected to the Dail as a Fine Gael TD for Dublin City South in 1927 and retained the seat until his death, apart from a short interval in 1937. He died at his home, Teac Beag, Gordon Avenue, Foxrock, on 20(?) December 1938 at the age of sixty-three. He was married to Ethel, daughter of Joshua Koehler, and had two sons and two daughters.
Addresses:: South Docks Works, Ringsend, Dublin.
Home: Dereen, Westminster Road, Foxrock, Co. Dublin; Teac Beg, Gordon Avenue, Foxrock.
See WORKS.
References
All information in this entry not otherwise attributed is from the obituaries of Beckett in the Irish Times and the Irish Independent, 20? December 1938 (undated photocopies donated to IAA by Hylda Beckett, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Sep 2000) and from the entry by Pauric J. Dempsey in Dictionary of Irish Biography, ed. by James McGuire and James Quinn, 9 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 2009), I, 403. Another obituary (not seen) is in IB 80, 24 Dec 1938, 1080.
www.familysearch.org.
For a bird's-eye view of the works, see advertisement in Irish Times, 9 Apr 1925.