Beckett, Harold C., 1890-1970 : Much of the information below is taken from a biography supplied by Harold Beckett's son, Thomas C. Beckett.
Harold Champ Beckett, MRAIC, AIA, OAA, was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1890, He was the eldest son of a prominent Hamilton businessman. He studied geology, architecture and engineering at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1911. He became a member of the Ontario Association of Architects that same year. He did post-graduate workat the Columbia School of Architecture in New York, graduating from the Beaux Arts programme in 1915, after receiving 5 medals for his designs. Following graduation he became an officer in the 120th Battalion, 13th Regiment, 2nd Division. In 1918 he settled in Detroit Michigan, and married Josephine Toull of Ingersoll, Ontario. They had three sons. During this period he continued to study horticulture and geology.
He worked for a short time as a commercial artist, but then began a successful architectural practice in Detroit, and became an American citizen in 1924. In a conversation with Sally Coutts, Architectural Historian, Parks Canada, his son, John, remembered that his father had set up an architectural practice in Detroit while living in Windsor and that he lectured occasionally at Purdue University. Many of his houses still stand in Grosse Point and Lansing. Some of his garden designs featured impressive reflecting pools surrounding by natural rock gardens. When the Depression hit in 1929, Beckett was forced to close his Detroit practice and turned to government work, as well as painting and gardening.
At the time of Beckett's appointment to the Banff Administration Building project, J.B. Harkin, Commissioner of Parks, reported that the chief architect had been shown photographs and drawings of large Michigan residences designed by Beckett hich showed that he was a "competent architect" with "considerable knowledge of landscape work. He was hired to landscape the Calgary Barracks, a project which was never carried through, and he designed the Banff East Gate buildings and Administration buildings. The project provided much needed relief work to the local population, and according to his son, he became a very popular figure in the town, even leading the "Indian Days" parade down Banff Avenue. Work on the gardens was halted after the change of government in Ottawa in 1935. A large area beyond the present gardens, that was to include lakes and walking trails was never completed (see plan). Nonetheless, Beckett considered the project to be the highlight of his career.
Following the Banff project, Beckett found an appointment as the Director of Housing Research for the Rockefeller Foundation at Purdue University in Indiana, and in 1940 reopened his Detroit practice. Following the entry of the United States into the Secord World War, however, Beckett once more closed his office and began work for the US Government. He was employed with Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls as chief designer, building machine gun ammunition factories, and later, with the US Department of Ordinance, design tanks in Detroit.
In 1945 he moved back to Windsor, Ontario, reinstated his Canadian citizenship, and opened a small office. He wrote and illustrated a popular weekly column on gardening, "The Garden Culture Series", which was published in newspapers in Canada and the United States. He also wrote an illustrated syndicated article on small house design, which was published weekly in dozens of newspapers across the country.
In 1962 he retired and moved to Ancaster, Ontario with his wife, where he died in September 1970.
