Henry Charles Beeching (15 May 1859 – 25 February 1919)^[1] was a British clergyman, writerand poet, who was Dean of Norwich from 1911 to 1919.^[2]

H. C. Beeching was born on 15 May 1859 in Sussex, the son of J. P. G. Beeching of Bexhill.^[3] He was educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford.^[4][5] He took holy orders in 1882, and began work in a Liverpool parish at Mossley Hill.^[6] He was Rector of Yattendon from 1885 to 1900; Clark Lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1900; professor of Pastoral Theology at King's College London from 1900 to 1903; Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn from 1900 to 1903;^[7] Canon of Westminster Abbey from October 1902 until 1911^[8][9] and Dean of Norwich from 1911 until his death.^[10] He wrote a book on Francis Atterbury.^[11] To him is attributed the popular epigram on Benjamin Jowett:

First come I; my name is Jowett.

There's no knowledge but I know it.

I am master of this college:

What I don't know isn't knowledge.^[12]

This is the first verse of The Masque of B-ll—l (1880), a scurrilous undergraduate production in 40 verses satirising Balliol figures. It was suppressed at the time. Later research has given Beeching credit for 19 of the verses.^{[citation needed]}

• Love in Idleness: A Volume of Poems (1883) with J. W. Mackail and J. B. B. Nichols
• Love's Looking Glass (1892) with J. W. Mackail and J. B. B. Nichols
• A Paradise of English Poetry (1893), an anthology of English poets
• Pages from a Private Diary (1898), originally published anonymously
• "The Character of Shakespeare". Proceedings of the British Academy, 1917–1918. 8: 157–179.