Frank Evers Beddard was born in Dudley, Worcestershire, the son of John Beddard. He was educated at Harrow and New College, Oxford.
Beddard was naturalist to the Challenger Expedition Commission from 1882-1884. In 1884 he was appointed prosector at the Zoological Society of London. He was also Vice-Secretary at the Society.
He became lecturer in biology at Guy's Hospital, examiner in zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of London, and lecturer in morphology at Oxford University.
Apart from his publications on wide-ranging topics in zoology such as isopoda, mammalia, ornithology, zoogeography and animal coloration, Beddard became noted as an authority on the annelids, publishing two books on the group and contributing articles on earthworms, leeches and the nematoda for the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Beddard contributed biographies of zoologists William Henry Flower and John Anderson for the Dictionary of National Biography. He was the author of volume 10 (mammalia) of the Cambridge Natural History. Beddard's olingo (Pocock, 1921) is named after him.
