Born in New Plymouth on 16 February 1936,[2] he was the son of Stanley Develle Beetham (a carpenter) and his wife Frances Agnes Amy Watts.

[2] The Beetham family were Anglican but he instead joined a Presbyterian bible class and prior to training as a teacher he gave serious consideration to entering the ministry.

In 1976, Beetham was elected Mayor of Hamilton in a by-election to replace Mike Minogue, who had resigned to take up a seat in Parliament.

On 18 February 1978, Beetham won election to Parliament in a by-election for the Rangitikei electorate, to fill a vacancy caused by the death of its long-time member, the Parliamentary Speaker, Sir Roy Jack.

[7] He retained the seat in the general election later that year, and the Social Credit Political League polled 16 percent of the vote nationwide, its best result to date.

Later that same year, Beetham married Beverley May Clark (née Morrison), who had two sons from her previous marriage, and came from a Social Credit family.

However this saw the addition of Gary Knapp as a second Social Credit MP, meaning the party could make more of an impact inside Parliament itself.

[3] In May 1982 National Party Prime Minister Robert Muldoon announced plans to build the controversial Clyde Dam (part of Think Big), but faced backbench dissidents voting against it.

[citation needed] A number of factors resulted in a sharp drop in support for the Social Credit Party in the general election of 1984.

[3] Beetham lost his Rangitikei seat in 1984, mainly because of electoral boundary changes; suspicions have lingered since that the redistribution may have been politically motivated (Gerrymandering).

[3] After losing his seat in Parliament, Beetham considered resigning as Social Credit leader but was persuaded to stay on after being offered a full-time salary to do so.

The new leader, on the night he was elected, implied in a TV interview that the Social Credit national dividend policy was out of date and would be dropped.

The next day Mr Beetham said he was considering resigning because the new leadership was rejecting basic Social Credit philosophy.

This promoted Morrison to publicly retract his comments, and affirm that of course the national dividend would be retained as an important part of Social Credit policy.

[2] His funeral service was held at St Stephen's Anglican Church in Marton and attracted 450 mourners who were asked to pray for monetary reform.

His humanistic approach has been attributed to his childhood admiration of Labour Party Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage, while growing up in the Great Depression.