BECKETT, Samuel Gustavus (1869-1917) was the son of Edward Beckett, an iron foundry owner in Toronto and was born there on 2 December 1869. He was educated at Jarvis Collegiate and received his architectural education at Cornell University at Ithaca, N.Y. In 1887 he was recorded as an assistant working in the office of Edward J. Lennox, a leading architect in Toronto, and it is likely that he trained under Lennox during this period, and served a 3-year apprenticeship with him through until 1890 (City of Toronto Directory, 1888, p. 347). In 1893 he was listed as draftsman with Edmund Burke, another prominent architect in Toronto, and by 1895 Beckett had opened his own office as an architect on Toronto Street (City of Toronto Directory, 1895, 455). He practiced under his own name for 4 years, but by 1899 was once again working in another office, this time with G.W. Gouinlock as a staff architect. In late 1899 he was invited by William C. V. Chadwick to form a new partnership (see list of works under Chadwick & Beckett).
Together, they specialized in designing sumptuous and imposing residences in the fashionable Toronto neighbourhoods of Rosedale, Lawrence Park, and The Annex (see list of works under Chadwick & Beckett). He was an acknowledged authority on military and cavalry tactics, and as early as 1893 was active in local regimental and battalion units in the city. He was '....a good horseman, a crack shot, and very efficient officer' who continued to practice architecture until the outbreak of World War I when both partners enlisted in Canadian Expeditionary Forces. Beckett was appointed Lieutenant Colonel on 1 July 1915, but his promising career came to an abrupt end when he was killed in action at Carency, France on 1 March 1917 (obituary in Toronto World, 5 March 1917, l; Daily Star [Toronto], 5 March 1917, 9; portrait in Const., viii, Dec 1915, 508).