Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Henry Beck was born in February 1848 and was commissioned into the 15th Hussars in February 1867. A Captain by the outbreak of the Second Afghan War, he served with the Regiment in General Phayre's Division in the Second Campaign and was advanced to Major soon after the end of hostilities. Beck was next actively engaged in the First Boer War in the Transvaal Campaign of 1881, and was finally placed on the Reserve of Officers as a half-Colonel in June 1893.