Sir Hugh Beaver was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire after he spent two years in the Indian Police force from 1910. In 1921, he returned to England, before joining Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners, Engineers. In 1931, the firm was commissioned by the Canadian government to conduct a survey of its national ports. Beaver spent seven months in Canada, during which time he was asked to supervise the rebuilding of the Port of St John, new Brunswick, which had been destroyed by fire.

​1940 - 1945     Director General and Controller General of the Ministry of Works
1946 - 1960     Managing Director of Arthur Guinness, Son and Co Ltd
1946 - 1947     Co-opted member of Lord Reith's Commitee on New Towns
1948 - 1950     Member of the Building Industry Working Party
1951 - 1960     Director of the Colonial Development Corporation
1952 - 1953     Chairman of the Committee on Power Station Construction.
1953 - 1954     Chairman of the Committee on Air Pollution
1954 - 1956     Chairman on the Advisory Council on Scientific and Industrial Research
1958 - 1963     Chairman of the Industrial Fund for the Advancement of Scientific Education
1958 - 1963     A key sponsor of the creation of St Catherine's College, Oxford
1959 - 1960     President of the Royal Statistical Society

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He was knighted in 1943 and awarded a KBE in 1956. He also received honorary degrees from the University of Cambridge, Trinity College, Dublin, the National University of Ireland, and was made an honorary fellow of the London School of Economics in 1960. He died in 1967. 

Sir Hugh Beaver