Cyril W. Beaumont

Cyril W. Beaumont OBE (1 November 1891 – 24 May 1976) was a British dance historian, critic, technical theorist, translator, bookseller, and publisher.

In 1910, when he was nineteen, his father bought a small shop at 75 Charing Cross Road, in central London, and set him up in business as a seller of literary classics and rare books.

[5] However, as his affinity for ballet developed into a deep passion, the inventory at his shop gradually changed from a focus on general literature to a concentration on dance.

With a large and diverse stock of books in dance literature, it was internationally known as a source of works in history, criticism, and appreciation of the art.

Among his friends was the Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova, who took him in 1918 to observe a class taught by the Italian ballet master and pedagogue Enrico Cecchetti.

[8] Beaumont was president of the Cecchetti Society for many years (1923–1970), editor of Dance Journal (1924–1939), and influential ballet critic of The Sunday Times (1950–1959).

Throughout his life he maintained a formal, somewhat reserved, demeanor in public—he always wore a neat suit and tie, and, in deference to his erudition, almost everyone called him Mr. Beaumont[9]—but he was welcoming, friendly, and helpful to the patrons of his shop, whether they were famous dancers or student researchers.

Although no longer in print, it remains an invaluable source of accurate information on more than three hundred ballets of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.