William Beeby, the youngest of three children, was born in Sheffield in the summer of 1890 to William Mardon Beeby, a congregational minister, and Mary Jane (nee Sorby.) The census for 1891 shows the family living in Crabtree Lane, near the present day Northern General. William Senior died in 1896 and the family had moved to Sale Hill in Broomhill by 1901.
Mary Jane died just after the census of 1901 was taken and William and his brother Henry were living at 7 Oriel Road in Fulwood in 1911. Henry, by then 25 years old, was an accountant and William was a law student. The house was the home of William and Eliza Harrison who were both 70 years old and their niece, Alice, was helping to run the household. This was the address that William gave when he enlisted and was included in a notice about his estate that was printed in November 1917. Henry qualified in 1913 and was practising in Sheffield when war was declared.
William enlisted in August 1914 and at the end of October he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Hallamshire Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment. Subsequent promotions to Lieutenant (1915) and Captain (1916) followed.
He was killed in action on 3rd May 1917 at Bullecourt. He is commemorated at the Arras Memorial and at Fulwood.