Beard was born in Ellerdine Heath in Shropshire in 1871,^[1] son of a farm labourer.^[2] His family were Primitive Methodists, whose local chapel ran an elementary day school at Ellerdine where Beard had his full-time education^[1] until leaving at the age of ten years.^[2]

After leaving school he helped his father when then working in a brickyard carrying bricks for the building of an extension to Peplow Hall, then as labourer on a farm at Muckleton, Shawbury and at age fourteen for a builder at nearby Wytheford who was then working on the Apley Castle estate at Wellington. He briefly left Shropshire when he worked down a mine in north Staffordshire where he joined the Miners' Association union before he took up work as an insurance agent,^[2] becoming a founder of the Planet Insurance Company.^[2][3]

He was a founder member of the Workers' Union in 1898, and it appointed him as its Shropshire organiser. In this role, after a failed attempt to organise in the Ironbridge coalfields^[2] he recruited large numbers of farm labourers to the union, and successfully campaigned for an increase in their wages.^[4] By 1900, the union in Shropshire grew to 20 branches, although most had an ephemeral existence.^[2] He moved to Birmingham in 1904 to become the union's national agricultural organiser, and there became involved in the Labour Party.

Beard, who had been one of ten self-described Labour members elected at the founding of High Ercall Parish Council in Shropshire in 1894,^[2] was elected as a member of Birmingham City Council in 1910, representing Saltley, in which post he was leading figure in the creation of the Birmingham Municipal Bank.^[3] He left Birmingham in 1920 when he became more involved in union affairs in London^[2]

In 1913, Beard was elected as national president of the Workers' Union. He led a major, successful, strike in the chain-making industry that year, further increasing his prestige in the union, and was elected to the general council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in 1920.^[4] However, by 1927, the Workers' Union's finances were a major problem, and Beard led negotiations with Ernest Bevin which led to it merging into the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) two years later.^[5] In 1929/30, Beard served as President of the TUC,^[4] and in 1931 as the TUC's joint representative to the American Federation of Labour. He retired in 1936,^[4] and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1938 Birthday Honours.^[6] In 1915, Beard founded initially for the W.U.'s Midlands region a monthly magazine called The Record, which went national in 1916 and was later adopted by the TGWU.^[2]

In retirement, Beard served on the Wheat Commission and the Agricultural Wages Board until his death.^[1] He settled in Kingsbury, London^[1] but revisited Shropshire. He published in 1949 a book of reminiscences of his early life in the county, My Shropshire Days on Common Ways.^[1][2]

Beard died in his sleep while staying at the home of a boyhood friend at Rose Cottage in Ellerdine, aged 78. His funeral service took place on 29 September 1950 at Bethel (ex-PM) Chapel at Ellerdine Heath, followed by cremation at Perry Barr, Birmingham, after which his ashes were scattered on the graves of relatives at All Hallows churchyard, Rowton.^[7]

Beard married Dora Cadman, of Old Park, Dawley, Shropshire, who was sister of Congregationalist minister and religious broadcaster Samuel Parkes Cadman. The couple had one son and five daughters.^[2]