[1] He was born in London, the son of solicitor William à Beckett, and belonged to a family claiming descent from Thomas Becket.

He was an active journalist on The Times and The Morning Herald, contributed a series of light articles to the Illustrated London News, conducted in 1846 The Almanack of the Month and found time to produce some fifty or sixty plays, among them dramatized versions of Charles Dickens's shorter stories, written in collaboration with Mark Lemon.

[3] He wrote the book for two operas with music composed by his wife Mary Anne à Beckett (née Glossop), Agnes Sorrel and Red Riding Hood.

As poor-law commissioner he presented a valuable report to the Home Secretary regarding the Andover workhouse scandal,[2] and in 1849 he became a metropolitan police magistrate.

[4] He died in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, of typhoid fever and is buried on the western side of Highgate Cemetery[5] (plot no.7604), above and to the far left of the colonnade in the courtyard.