William Thomas Beckford (29 September 1760 – 2 May 1844) was a British writer and politician. He was reputed at one stage to be England's richest commoner. Beckford was the son of William Beckford and Maria Hamilton, the daughter of George Hamilton. He served as a Member of Parliament for Wells in 1784–1790 and Hindon in 1790–1795 and 1806–1820. Beckford is best known for writing the 1786 Gothic novel Vathek, for building Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire and Beckford's Tower in Bath, and for his extensive art collection.
Biography
Beckford was born in the family's London home at 22 Soho Square on 29 September 1760. At the age of ten, he inherited a fortune on the death of his father William Beckford, who had been twice a Lord Mayor of London. It consisted of £1 million in cash, an estate at Fonthill in Wiltshire (including the Palladian mansion Fonthill Splendens), several sugar plantations in Jamaica, and about 3,000 slaves.
This fortune allowed him to indulge his interest in art and architecture, as well as writing. He may have studied music with Dr James Nares (1715-1783), organist of the Chapel Royal. At the age of five he had three lessons with the eight year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose significance he afterwards exaggerated, even claiming to a credulous biographer to have given Mozart the melody of Non più andrai. His drawing master, Alexander Cozens, was a greater influence, and Beckford continued to correspond with him for some years until they fell out.
On 5 May 1783 Beckford married Lady Margaret Gordon, a daughter of the fourth Earl of Aboyne. However, he was bisexual and after 1784 chose self-exile from British society when his letters to William Courtenay, later 9th Earl of Devon, were intercepted by the boy's uncle, who advertised the affair in the newspapers. Courtenay was just ten years old on first meeting Beckford, who was eight years older. About six years later, Beckford was discovered (according to a house guest at the time) to be "whipping Courtenay in some posture or another" after finding a letter penned by Courtenay to another lover. Although Beckford was never charged with child molestation, fornication or attempted buggery, social and family pressure obliged him to retire to the continent with his long-suffering wife, who died in childbirth aged 24.
