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This page is about Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, England. For other uses of the name see Beaconsfield (disambiguation)
Beaconsfield is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England, about 30 miles NW of London. The town sits in the highly attractive Chiltern Hills and is part of the London commuter belt, thus the average cost of housing in the town is extremely high.
The parish is mainly given over arable land though some forest remains that was planted to supply the furniture industry of High Wycombe. The parish church is dedicated to St Mary.
The town name first made an appearance in manor records of 1184 and was written as Bekenesfelde or "Beacon's Field" in modern English, meaning that here was a field in which could be found a beacon or signal fire.
In the Victorian era the town was the home constituencyElections A constituency is any cohesive corporate unit or body bound by shared structures, goals or loyalty. It can be used to describe a business's customer base and shareholders, or a charity's donors or those it serves. The most common meaning of cons of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United KingdomIn the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister is the head of government, exercising many of the executive functions nominally vested in the Sovereign, who is head of state. According to custom, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet (which he or she heads) are re in 1868Events January 3 Meiji Emperor declares " Meiji Restoration", his own restoration to full power, against the supporters of the Tokugawa Shogunate. January 10 Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu declares emperor's declaration "illegal" and attacks Kyoto. Pro-Emperor and then again from 1874Events January 1 New York City annexes The Bronx January 23 Marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria, to Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, only daughter of Emperor Alexander III of Russia. January Signing of the Pangkor Tr until 1880Events January 1 Construction of the Panama Canal begins February 2 The first electric streetlight is installed in Wabash, Indiana February 13 Thomas Edison becomes the second person to observe the Edison Effect. February 17 Bomb explodes in Winter Palace. In 1876Events January events January 31 The United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations. February events February 2 The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed. February 14 Alexander Graham Bell a he was made the 1st Earl of Beaconsfield by Queen Victoria. It was due to this that Beaconsfield became a popular road name in industrial cities across the country in the late Victorian period.
Dominic Grieve is the Member of Parliament for Beaconsfield, first elected in 1997, and now the shadow Attorney-General. Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom famously contested the seat in a by-election in 1982 and lost.
Today the town is very prosperous and quite picturesque. It is the home of Bekonscot model village, the National Film and Television School, and it is the birthplace of Terry Pratchett. Famous residents include Enid Blyton and Pauline Quirke, and it is the burial place of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Edmund Burke and Edmund Waller.
