Sir William Eric Beckett, KCMG, QC (20 October 1896 – 27 August 1966) was a British international lawyer who served as Legal Adviser to the Foreign Office from 1945 to 1953.
He then entered Wadham College, Oxford, where he was a scholar, took first-class honours in Jurisprudence, and won the Eldon Law Scholarship.
He played a key role in the 1930 League of Nations Codification Conference and in relation to the abolition of the capitulatory regime in Egypt in 1934.
[2] He advised the British government during the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, and played an important part in the first three assemblies of the United Nations.
As Legal Adviser, Beckett was responsible for a heavy litigation program involving the United Kingdom.