Walter Beaton opened his antique shop in Dundee in 1932, after working for about 10 years for the Dundee antique dealers Norries, Yeaman, Shore. He retired from business in 1963 and died in 1968. The antique business was continued by his son William Beaton, who had joined his father in 1945.
William Beaton continued the antique business started by his father Walter Beaton in c.1930, first in his father's antique shop in Dundee, before moving the business to Perth in the mid 1960s. From 1963, when Walter Beaton retired, William traded on his own. William was elected as a member of BADA in the mid 1960s and served as Vice President of BADA; he retired from business in the 1990s and now lives in Kinross.