 Born in Great Dunmow, Essex, he was the only surviving child of the landowner Sir George Beaumont, 6th Baronet, from whom he inherited the baronetcy in 1762 (see Beaumont baronets) and Rachel [nee Howland] daughter of Michael Howland of Stone Hall, Matching Green.Beaumont was educated at Eton College, where he was taught drawing by the landscape painter Alexander Cozens.The first paintings to enter Beaumont's collection were by artists he knew, but a Grand Tour which he undertook in 1782 with his wife Margaret (the daughter of John Willes M.P., of Astrop, Oxon and granddaughter of Sir John Willes M.P., Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas) widened his taste to include the Old Masters.