1. Sir Adam Beck was a Canadian politician and hydroelectricity advocate who founded the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario.
15 Facts About Adam Beck
1. 2.
Adam Beck was the great-great-grandson of Count Karoly Andrassy de Csikszentkiraly et Krasznahorka.
3.
Adam Beck attended school at the Rockwood Academy in Rockwood, Ontario.
4.
Adam Beck was involved in horse breeding and racing, and at a horse show in 1897 he met Lilian Ottaway of Hamilton daughter of Cuthbert Ottaway and Marion Stinson.
5.
Adam Beck named their London mansion Headley, after Lilian's parents' home in Surrey, England.
6.
Also in 1898, Adam Beck ran for provincial legislature for the first time, but lost.
7.
In 1900, Adam Beck founded the London Health Association, which would later develop into the University and Victoria Hospitals.
8.
Adam Beck was re-elected mayor in 1903 and 1904 while simultaneously serving as a member of the provincial legislature.
9.
Adam Beck was an early and prominent advocate of publicly owned electricity grids, opposing the privately owned companies who he felt did not adequately serve the needs of the public.
10.
Adam Beck was knighted by King George V in 1914 for his promotion of electricity and development of transmission lines.
11.
In 1915, he tried to introduce a network of interurban railways, known provincially as radials in Ontario under public ownership, but this plan had to be put on hold during World War I In the 1919 post-war election, Beck lost his seat to Hugh Stevenson as the United Farmers of Ontario swept the Conservatives out of power.
12.
Adam Beck continued to push his radial railways proposal after World War I, which pitted him against Premier Ernest Drury, with whom he had an antagonistic relationship.
13.
Adam Beck's daughter Marion, born in 1904, suffered from tuberculosis, but with Beck's wealth and influence she had access to the best doctors and medicine.
14.
In 1918 Adam Beck paid fellow Londoner Guy Lombardo to play at Marion's debutante party.
15.
In 1923 Adam Beck was re-elected to the Ontario legislature, until his own death from anemia in 1925.