Octavius Charles Beale (23 February 1850 – 16 December 1930) was an Irish-born Australian piano manufacturer and a philanthropist. Beale formed a company to import sewing machines and pianos in 1879, after which he established Australia's first piano factory in Annandale, 1893. The factory ceased production in 1975. He served as president of the New South Wales Chamber of Commerce and a trustee of the Australian Museum, and the Bank of New South Wales (Westpac). In 1903, Beale was appointed one of twelve members of a Royal Commission into the decline of the birth rate in New South Wales. He later conducted, at his own expense, a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Secret Drugs, 1905-1910. The two-volume report records the criminal unscrupulousness of manufacturers and advertisers.

Marriage and family

Beale married Elizabeth (Lilly) Baily (1856 – 1901) at the Congregational Church, Woollahra, New South Wales, and they had twelve children. After Lily's death he married her sister Katherine on 4 March 1903. The children from the first marriage were: On his death in a motor vehicle accident in Stroud, New South Wales, Beale was survived by his second wife and ten of his 12 children.