| Authorised form of name | Beit; Sir; Otto John (1865 - 1930); financier, philanthropist, and art connoisseur |
| Dates | 1865 - 1930 |
| Place of birth | Hamburg, Germany, Europe |
| Date of birth | 07 December 1865 |
| Place of death | London |
| Date of death | 07/12/1930 |
| Occupation | financier, philanthropist, and art connoisseur |
| Activity | Career: Went to England an joined Wernher, Beit & Co., stockbroking firm (1888); left for South Africa to gain experience in the diamond industry, taking an active role in the development of Rand Gold Mines and became a member of Hermann Eckstein's firm, H. Eckstein & Co (1890-6); returned to London and became a naturalised British citizen (1896); supported the imperialist vision of Cecil Rhodes, and as his house-guest at the time of the Jameson Raid; decided to pursue philanthropy and donated to children's sanatoria, libraries and a homoeopathic research institute; director of Rhodesia Railways Ltd; Member, Governing Body of Imperial College (1912–1930); Trustee of the Rhodes Trust, and Beit Railway Trust for Rhodesia; founded Beit Memorial Trust for Medical Research; established the Beit Fellowship at Imperial College in memory of his brother Alfred (1913); founded the Beit Fellowships for Scientific Research at Imperial College; helped the Victoria and Albert Museum to acquire many works of art.
Honours:
KCMG 1920; Bt 1924 |
| Membership category | Statute 12 |
| Date of election | 06/11/1924 |
| Age at election | 59 |
| Proposer | Arthur Schuster; Thomas Ralph Merton; Hugh Frank Newall; Arthur Stanley Eddington; Alexander Scott; Jocelyn Sharpe; W E Dalley; William Henry Bragg; Harold Wager |
| Thomas Henry Holland; Thomas Renton Elliott; Frank Edward Smith; Frederick William Andrewes; Sidney Frederic Harmer; Edwin Stephen Goodrich; Diarmid Noel Paton; Arthur Hill; David Prain; James Hopwood Jeans; William Bate Hardy |
| Relationships | Parents: Siegfried Beit (1818–1881), silk merchant, andLaura Caroline Hahn (b. 1819). The Beits, who were of Sephardic Jewish descent, had settled in Hamburg in the seventeenth century.
Brother: Alfred Beit (1853-16 July 1906), diamond magnate in South Africa.
Spouse: Lilian Carter, the daughter of Thomas Lane Carter of New Orleans, Louisiana, US (27 May 1897).
Children: Two sons and two daughters, the elder son Theodore killing himself in 1917 and the younger being Alfred Lane Beit. |
| Royal Society Obituary or Memoir | Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices) |
| Source | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB
Obituaries:
Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 1932-1935 vol l pp 60-62, plate, signed by J R B |
| Code | NA748 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1924/16 | Beit, Sir Otto John: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| IM/000320 | Beit, Sir Otto John | 1991 |
| NLB/67/158 | Copy letter from William Bate Hardy and James Hopwood Jeans, Secretaries of the Royal Society; to Sir Otto [John] Beit, Bart, KCMG | 6 November 1924 |
| NLB/67/205 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir Otto [John] Beit, Bart., KCMG, FRS | 13 November 1924 |
| NLB/70/67 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir [John] Otto Beit, Baronet, FRS; 49 Belgrave Square, S.W.1. | 14 December 1926 |
| MC/17 | Volume 17 of miscellaneous correspondence regarding business matters, sent to the Royal Society | 1897-1899 |
| MC/27/27 | Letter from Otto [John] Beit, 49 Belgrave Square, S.W, to [Robert] Harrison, The Royal Society, Burlington House, W | 10 December 1912 |
| MC/27/28 | Letter from Otto [John] Beit, Municipal Technical Institute, Belfast, to The Secretary, Royal Society, Burlington House, Picadilly [sic], London | 5 October 1912 |
| MC/27/29 | Letter from Otto [John] Beit, Municipal Technical Institute, Belfast, to Robert Harrison, Royal Society, Burlington House, London, W | 8 October 1912 |