John Hay Beith

Major General John Hay Beith, CBE (17 April 1876 – 22 September 1952), was a British schoolmaster and soldier, but he is best remembered as a novelist, playwright, essayist and historian who wrote under the pen name Ian Hay.

After reading Classics at Cambridge, Beith became a schoolmaster. In 1907 he published a novel, Pip; its success and that of several more novels enabled him to give up teaching in 1912 to be a full-time author. During the First World War, Beith served as an officer in the army in France. His good-humoured account of army life, The First Hundred Thousand, published in 1915, was a best-seller. On the strength of this, he was sent to work in the information section of the British War Mission in Washington, D.C.

After the war Beith's novels did not achieve the popularity of his earlier work, but he made a considerable career as a dramatist, writing light comedies, often in collaboration with other authors including P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton. During the Second World War Beith served as Director of Public Relations at the War Office, retiring in 1941 shortly before his 65th birthday.

John Hay

John Milton Hay (October 8, 1838 – July 1, 1905) was an American statesman and official whose career in government stretched over almost half a century. Beginning as a private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln, Hay's highest office was United States Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Hay was also an author and biographer, and wrote poetry and other literature throughout much of his life.

Born in Indiana to an anti-slavery family that moved to Illinois when he was young, Hay showed great potential, and his family sent him to Brown University. After graduation in 1858, Hay read law in his uncle's office in Springfield, Illinois, adjacent to that of Lincoln. Hay worked for Lincoln's successful presidential campaign, and became one of his private secretaries at the White House. Throughout the American Civil War, Hay was close to Lincoln, and stood by his deathbed after the President was shot at Ford's Theatre. In addition to his other literary works, Hay co-authored with John George Nicolay a multi-volume biography of Lincoln that helped shape the assassinated president's historical image.

John Hay (cardiologist)

John Hay (25 November 1873 – 21 April 1959) was a British cardiologist.

He was born in Birkenhead, Lancashire, the son of a Scottish architect and educated at the Liverpool Institute and the Victoria University of Manchester, qualifying M.B. in 1896.

From 1900 to 1903 he was medical tutor and registrar at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. In 1905 he identified a form of second degree AV block. In 1907 he was appointed Assistant Physician and set up the first specialised heart department in the north of England.

During WWI he served at the 1st Western General Hospital, becoming a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1915 and in 1923 delivered their Bradshaw Lecture on Prognosis in Angina Pectoris. In 1924 he was appointed Professor of Medicine (part-time) at the University of Liverpool. He retired to live at Bowness in the Lake District, where he died in 1959.

He had married in 1906 Agnes Margaret Duncan, daughter of William Duncan of Tyldesley, Lancashire. They had two sons and two daughters.

John Hay (footballer)

John Hay was a Scottish professional footballer who played as a right back.

Career

Born in Renfrew, Hay played for Bathgate, Bradford City and St Bernard's.

For Bradford City he made 3 appearances in the Football League.

Sources

References

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: