Joseph Hamilton Beattie (1808-1871) was a locomotive engineer with the London and South Western Railway. Joseph Beattie was born in Ireland on 12 May 1808. He was educated in Belfast and initially apprenticed to his father, a Derry architect. He moved to England in 1835 to serve as an assistant to Joseph Locke on the Grand Junction Railway and from 1837 on the London and Southampton Railway. After the line opened he became the carriage and wagon superintendent at Nine Elms and succeeded John Viret Gooch as locomotive engineer on 1 July 1850.