Arthur Beaumont knew the value of supporting high school mathematics and consistently did that during his years at the University of Waterloo.
Arthur taught at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora and at the Royal Military College in Kingston. He became the Chair of Applied Mathematics, and the Associate Dean of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo. While there, he introduced the Accounting and Business Programmes into the Mathematics Faculty. He was a strong supporter of the Canadian Mathematics Competition, was Chair of the Rene Descartes Foundation for many years, and along with two other Descartes Medalists, Ken Fryer and John Del Grande, initiated the hiring of co-operative mathematics teaching students on work terms into Ontario high schools.
Arthur grew up on a farm in Carlisle, Ontario. He went to Waterdown H.S. and then McMaster University. Farming was always a hobby, and he returned to his family farm in his later years. Colleagues remember him pulling into the University parking lot with a pickup truck full of vegetables!
Another colleague remembers him this way: “He was a goer and a doer–an individual.”