BEACONSFIELD  , a

town in the Wycombe parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England, 23 M . W. by N. of London, on the main road to Oxford, and on the Great Central & Great Western joint railway . Pop. of urban district (1901) 1570 . It lies in a hilly well-wooded district above the valley of the small river Wye, a tributary of the Thames . The broad Oxford road forms its picturesque main street . It was formerly a posting station of importance, and had a considerable manufacture of ribbons . The Perpendicular church of St Mary and All Saints is the burial place of Edmund Burke (d . 1797), who lived at Gregories, or as he named it Butler's Court, near the town . He would have taken his title from Beaconsfield had he survived to enter the peerage . A monument to his memory was erected in 1898 . Edmund Waller the poet owned the property of Hall Barn, and died here in 1687 . His tomb is in the churchyard .

Benjamin Disraeli chose the title of earl of Beaconsfield in 1876, his wife having in 1868 received the title of Viscountess Beaconsfield . The opening of railway communication with London in 1906 resulted in a considerable accretion of residential population .