Sir Richard Ashton Beaumont KCMG OBE (29 December 1912 – 23 January 2009) was a British diplomat and Arabist who spent most his diplomatic career serving in the Arab world. Educated at Repton School and Oriel College, Oxford, Beaumont joined the Consular Service in 1936, and was sent to Lebanon and Syria. In 1941 he joined the Army and served in Palestine. In 1944 he returned to the Foreign Office. He served as a counsellor in the British Embassy in Baghdad, and was later sent to Venezuela, his only foreign post outside the Arab world.