Obituary: Professor Samuel H. Beer (1911–2009)

Samuel H. Beer, the distinguished authority on the theory and practice of British politics, died at the age of 97 on 7 April 2009. His achievement as a scholar, a highly revered teacher and a political activist are well known and widely acknowledged. He was the first foreigner to be honoured as a vice-president of the Political Studies Association and the first recipient of the Isaiah Berlin prize for Lifetime Achievement in Politics. In 2007 the Political Studies Association made a special presentation at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in recognition of his long and distinguished contribution to the study of British politics. He was president of the British Politics Group whose annual award for the best dissertation was named after him. Honorary degrees were bestowed upon him by Harvard, Depauw and Drake Universities in the US and Sussex and Ulster in the UK. He was honoured at a seminar and dinner in the House of Lords on the occasion of his 90th birthday attended by politicians and journalists as well as academics. He did not let on until some time later that it was only his 89th birthday. A similar occasion organised by former colleagues and students in the US got the timing right.