William Beardmore was born on 16 October 1856 at Greenwich, London. He was educated at the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, and at the Royal School of Mines, South Kensington, before serving his apprenticeship at his father's Parkhead Forge in Glasgow. On the death of his father in 1879, he became a partner in his engineering business and later founded William Beardmore & Company, a firm of naval ship builders and armour plate manufacturers based in Glasgow.
After employing the explorer Ernest Henry Shackleton as his personal assistant in 1906, Beardmore acted as guarantor for Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition, 1907-1909. Shackleton named the Beardmore Glacier after him. In 1914, Beardmore was created a baronet and in 1921 raised to the peerage as Baron Invernairn of Strathnairn. He severed his connection with the firm in the late 1920s, and the shipyard was acquired by National Shipbuilders' Security Limited in 1930. He died on 9 April 1936 at Flichity, Scotland.
From the guide to the William Beardmore collection, 1922, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
