- His eldest son Adrian Welles Beecham succeeded him in the baronetcy.
- The eldest son of the late Sir Joseph Beecham, the wealthy manufacturer of pills and the famous Beecham's Powders.
- Met future wife Betty Humby when she was 12. She played at several of his concerts.
- He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 1916 King's Honours List for his services to music.
- Succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his father (who had been made a Baron in 1914) in 1916.
- He was awarded a Companion of Honour in the 1957 Queen's Honours List for his services to music.
- Two sons by his first marriage
- He formed the Royal Philharmonic in 1947, and conducted it from 1947 until his death.
- He is as famous for his dry, sarcastic witticisms as for his conducting.
- He is considered the greatest English conductor.
- He was a great champion of Frederick Delius.
- His early stereo recording of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" is widely considered the finest performance of the work.
- In 1959, he recorded a drastically re-orchestrated stereo version of Handel's "Messiah", rescored by Sir Eugene Goossens for a huge chorus and a modern symphony orchestra, complete with cymbals and tam-tams. Purists were horrified, but today the recording has been critically re-assessed and found to be immensely entertaining.
- He sincerely and honestly believed that the works of George Frideric Handel had to be re-orchestrated and edited before they were acceptable to a modern audience, and he often did exactly that. Today this attitude would be considered sacrilegious by some; however, Beecham, unlike Leopold Stokowski, never re-orchestrated just for show, and CDs of Beecham's versions of Handel's works continue to be released to great acclaim.
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