Beechey, Frederick William, 1796-1856, British admiral and Arctic explorer. He accompanied an expedition N of Spitsbergen in 1818 and wrote an account of it in his Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole (1843). He accompanied W. E. Parry to the Canadian Arctic in 1819, and in 1825-28 he commanded the Blossom in its explorations of the NW Alaska coast and search for the Northwest Passage. On this voyage he reached Point Barrow and explored Hotham inlet. He also surveyed the North African, South American, and Irish coasts.