Octavius Beale
Octavius Charles Beale was an Irish-born Australian piano manufacturer and a philanthropist.
Beale formed a company to import sewing machines and pianos in 1879, after which he established Australia's first piano factory in Annandale, 1893. The factory ceased production in 1975.
He served as president of the New South Wales Chamber of Commerce and a trustee of the Australian Museum, and the Bank of [New South Wales].
In 1903, Beale was appointed one of twelve members of a Royal Commission into the decline of the birth rate in New South Wales. He later conducted, at his own expense, a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Secret Drugs, 1905-1910. The two-volume report records the criminal unscrupulousness of manufacturers and advertisers.
Marriage and family
Beale married Elizabeth Baily at the Congregational Church, Woollahra, New South Wales, and they had twelve children. After Lily's death he married her sister Katherine on 4 March 1903. The children from the first marriage were:- Margaret Elizabeth
- Lionel Charles
- Ruth Beale
- Reginald Hugo
- Ronald Matheson
- Edgar Francis
- Rupert Octavius
- Harold Strangman Beale
- Octavius Cyril Beale
Cyril was educated at Newington College commencing in 1904. He was a Gunner in the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade serving during WWI from February until August 1917. He married Alice Gertrude Marion Burford on 11 November 1914. She was a daughter of William Burford of Adelaide. - Dr Hector Llewellyn Beale
- Hilda Dorothea Beale married Reginald Thomas Lamble on 11 March 1924.
- Mary Patricia Beale