Alan Beith

Alan James Beith, Baron Beith, PC (formerly known as Sir Alan Beith; born 20 April 1943) is a British politician who represented the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed as its Member of Parliament (MP) from 1973 to 2015.

From 1992 to 2003 he was Deputy Liberal Democratic Party Leader and, by 2015, Sir Alan was the longest-serving member of his party sitting in the House of Commons and the last Liberal Democrat//Liberal MP to have experience of Parliament from the 1970s.

Beith was elevated as a Life Peer in the 2015 Dissolution Honours List and took his title and a seat on the House of Lords Opposition benches on 23 November 2015.

Early life

The son of John Beith, of Scottish extraction, he was born in 1943 at Poynton in Cheshire. He was educated at The King's School, Macclesfield before going up to Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics graduating in 1964. He then pursued postgraduate studies at Nuffield College receiving a Bachelor of Letters (BLitt) degree.

Beith

Coordinates: 55°45′12″N 4°37′55″W / 55.7533°N 4.6319°W / 55.7533; -4.6319

Beith is a small town situated in the Garnock Valley, North Ayrshire, Scotland approximately 20 miles (30 kilometres) south-west of Glasgow. The town is situated on the crest of a hill and was known originally as the "Hill o' Beith" (hill of the birches) after its Court Hill.

History

Name

Beith's name is thought to emanate from Ogham, which is sometimes referred to as the "Celtic Tree Alphabet", ascribing names of trees to individual letters. Beithe in Old Irish means Birch-tree (cognate to Latin betula). There is reason to believe that the whole of the district was covered with woods. The town of Beith itself was once known as 'Hill of Beith' as this was the name of the feudal barony and was itself derived from the Court Hill near Hill of Beith Castle.

The Wood of Beit, now the 'Moor of Beith', has been identified as an Arthurian site where according to Taliessin in a poem under the name of 'Canowan' it was the site of a battle in the wood of Beit at the close of the day.

Beith (letter)

Beith is the Irish name of the first letter of the Ogham alphabet, ᚁ, meaning "birch". In Old Irish, the letter name was Beithe, which is related to Welsh bedw(en), Breton bezv(enn), and Latin betula. Its Proto-Indo-European root was *gʷet- 'resin, gum'. Its phonetic value is [b].

The Auraicept na n-Éces contains the tale of the mythological origins of Beith

In the medieval kennings, the verses associated with Beith are:

Peith ᚚ, a late addition to the Forfeda, is a variant of Beith, with a phonetic value of [p], also called beithe bog "soft beithe", [p] being considered a "soft" variant of [b]. It likely replaced Ifín ᚘ, one of the "original" five Forfeda. Prior to the addition of the Forfeda to the original twenty letters, both [p] and [b] were probably symbolized by the same letter: Beith.

Notes

Beith (surname)

Beith is a surname. Notable people with the name include: