Gavin Rylands de Beer, 1899-1972

Abstract

Gavin Rylands de Beer was born at Malden, Surrey, on 1 November 1899, the son of Herbert and Mabel Chaplin de Beer. They had one other child, a younger daughter. His father, born at Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, was the son of Arnold de Beer and Irene Chaplin; his mother, born at Thelwall, Cheshire, was the daughter of John Rylands and Anne Chaplin, she and Irene being sisters. The family name ‘had nothing to do with diamonds’. It meant ‘the Bear’; and so, in the vocabulary of nicknames which he developed into a private language, he was later known as ‘Little Bear’. He was brought up abroad for the first 13 years of his life, for his father, who had travelled widely as a young man, eventually settled in France, where he became the Paris correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph Company. They lived at first in Paris, in a flat in the Rue de la Paix, and then moved for a time to Versailles. Life was a perpetual entertainment. While in Paris, he was able to accompany his father on the privileged occasions to which they were admitted by press card. During their holidays they visited many European countries, with de Beer speaking English to his parents, German to his Swiss-German-speaking nurse and French to everyone else. He particularly recalled being taken from his home to play in the Gardens of the Tuileries, often passing a shop that sold collars, harness, buttoned boots and other frivolities for the greater comfort of dogs. These articles were offered to customers with the persuasive proposition that ‘on sait depuis Darwin que nous descendons des singes, ce qui nous fair encore plus aimer nos chiens’. ‘Qu’est ce que ça veut dire, Darre-vingt?’ enquired the small boy. He was not to understand the answer until much later.