He was born at Hammersmith, United Kingdom, the eldest son of Gilbert Abbott a Beckett. Graduating from Christ Church, Oxford, as a Westminster scholar in 1860, he was entered at Lincoln's Inn but gave his attention chiefly to drama, producing Diamonds and Hearts at the Haymarket in 1867. It was was followed by other light comedies. His pieces include numerous burlesques and pantomimes, the libretti of Savonarola (Hamburg, 1884) and of The Canterbury Pilgrims (Drury Lane, 1884) for the music of Dr. (afterwards Sir) C.V. Stanford. The Happy Land (Court Theatre, 1873), a political burlesque of W. S. Gilbert's Wicked World, was written in collaboration with F.L. Tomline. For the last ten years of his life he was on the regular staff of Punch.
His health was seriously affected in 1889 by the death of his only son, and he died in 1891.
BECKETT, GILBERT ABBOTT (1811-1856), English writer, was born in north London on the 9
Gilbert Abbott a Beckett was educated at Westminster school, and was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn in 1841.
A younger son, ARTHUR WILLIAM A BECKETT (1844--1909), a well-known journalist and man of letters, was also on the staff of Punch from 1874 to 1902, and gave an account of his father and his own reminiscences in The A Becketts of Punch (1903).
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