Julian Ruffin Beckwith, Jr.(1940-1982) was born December 28, 1910, in Petersburg, the son of Julian R. Beckwith, M.D., and Louise C. Beckwith. Educated in Petersburg public schools, he attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the University of Virginia School of Medicine, receiving his M.D. degree in 1936. After a rotating internship at the Cincinnati General Hospital, he returned to the University and spent several years in medical residency and fellowship before moving in 1940 to the C&O Hospital in Clifton Forge, where he soon became Chief of Medicine.

Except for a military leave of absence from 1943–46 (research service as captain in the Army Medical Corps), he spent 13 productive years at Clifton Forge, expanding the clinical facilities in internal medicine there, becoming the pre-eminent diagnostician and cardiologist in Western Virginia, and publishing a dozen excellent research papers without any institutional research support.

He returned to the University in 1953 as assistant professor of medicine in cardiology under the late J. Edwin Wood, Jr. By 1965 he had risen to the rank of professor and Head of the Cardiovascular Division, a position he held until 1977. In 1981 he retired as Emeritus Professor of Medicine but continued active practice as a consultant until his death in 1982.

Julian Beckwith's career epitomized excellence in clinical cardiology. In addition to the scholastic honors of membership in AOA, the Raven Society, Sigma Xi, and ODK, he was a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, a member of the American Heart Association, of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, of the Association of University Cardiologists, and president of the Virginia Heart Association for many years.

He was always an ardent supporter of the American College of Physicians, serving as Governor for Virginia from 1966–72; in 1982 he received the signal honor of being elected Master of the College.

During his academic career he produced 54 research or clinical publications, a revision of Grant's Clinical Electrocardiography, and his magnum opus, Basic Electrocardiography and Vectorcardiography, which appeared posthumously. His skills in patient care and administration were matched by those in teaching; twice (in 1970 and 1981) he received the Robley Dunglison Award as the outstanding clinical teacher of students at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

In 1936 he married Lois Hughes of Lynchburg, a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Nursing. Their family includes four children: Julian R. Beckwith, III, Ph.D., of Athens, Georgia; Lois B. Johnson of Ann Arbor, Michigan; George H. Beckwith, M.D., of New Bern, North Carolina; and Polly B. Hawkes of Hershey, Pennsylvania; and ten grandchildren, including Julian Beckwith IV and Julian Beckwith Johnson.

When Beckwith's health started to decline in July of 1982, he retired to his home in western Albemarle County. Beckwith died on September 17, 1982, at the age of 71. He was buried in the cemetery of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Ivy, where he had long been a faithful member. His memory is preserved by the established Julian R. Beckwith Professorship of Medicine at UVA.