Peter Beckingham
Biography
Peter Beckingham is the Governor in Turks and Caicos Islands. He was previously Deputy High Commissioner in India, heading the Mumbai –Western Indian offices. The Mumbai office has some 200 staff, whose main work covers trade and investment, entry clearance and bilateral relations with India. Peter came to Mumbai in January 2010 from Manila, where he was the British Ambassador to the Philippines from 2005 - 2009.
Prior to the Philippines, Peter was posted to Australia, first as Head of the Political Section in Canberra and later British Consul-General in Sydney and Director-General of Trade and Investment. Overseas, in addition to India, the Philippines and Australia, he has worked in the United States and Europe. He was Director of British Information Services New York, dealing with the US media, and subsequently Head of the Commercial Section in Stockholm, where he learnt Swedish.
In London Peter has worked in the Foreign Office’s News Department, served as the Head of the Section trying to alleviate famine in Ethiopia, and was Director of the Department running Britain’s commercial departments overseas. He also had a secondment to Cadbury Schweppes, attached briefly to operations in London, Birmingham and Poland.
Before studying at Selwyn College Cambridge, Peter won a Nuffield Scolarship to teach in Zambia, and while at Cambridge he received an award to visit Israel. After University, Peter worked for the Argo division of Decca Records as assistant to the managing director before joining the British Overseas Trade Board in 1974, travelling with a variety of business missions to Europe, SE Asia and the Middle East, and entering the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 1979.
He met his wife Jill at Cambridge. Jill is a school teacher, and a specialist in helping children with reading difficulties; she has worked in state schools in inner London, at the UN International School in New York, and in Stockholm. She is the Patron of the Philippine Community Fund, helping children on dump-sites, and also taught abused girls in Manila. They have two daughters.