Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/165

 in Ireland; from 1894 to 1897 he was president of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland; and from 1897 to 1906 he represented the University of Dublin on the General Medical Council. During the viceroyalty of the Earl of Dudley (1902–5) he was surgeon to the lord-lieutenant, and in 1900 he was made honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Bennett was an authority on fractures of bones. His best work is the collection of fractures and dislocations in the pathological museum of Trinity College. This was begun by R. W. Smith, whom he succeeded as curator in 1873, and was formed by Bennett into one of the most important collections of the kind in the kingdom. He spent years in compiling a catalogue furnished with notes and clinical histories, but it remained unfinished. He frequently published communications and reports dealing with the surgery and pathology of bones. In 1881 he described before the Dublin Pathological Society a form of fracture of the base of the metacarpal bone of the thumb previously unrecognised (Dublin Journal of Medical Science, lxxiii.). It closely simulates dislocation and is now universally known as 'Bennett's fracture' ( and, Edin. Medical Journal, April 1904). As an operating surgeon he was one of the earliest in Ireland to apply Listerian methods. As a teacher, he was forcible and practical, and he enlightened the driest subject with touches of humour.

Bennett died on 21 June 1907 at his residence, 26 Lower FitzWilliam Street, Dublin, and was buried at Mount Jerome cemetery, Dublin. On 20 Dec. 1870 he married Frances, daughter of Conolly Norman of Fahan, co. Donegal, and first cousin of Conolly Norman [q. v. Suppl. II]. He had two daughters, of whom one, Norah Mary, survived him. Two bronze portrait medallions by Mr. Oliver Sheppard, R.H.A., were placed respectively in the school of physic, Trinity College, and in Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital by subscription of his pupils. A bronze medal, to be awarded biennially to the winner of the surgical travelling prize in the school of physic, also bears on one side Mr. Sheppard's portrait of Bennett, and on the other a metacarpal bone showing 'Bennett's fracture.'

 BENT, THOMAS (1838–1909), prime minister of Victoria, born at Penrith in New South Wales on 7 Dec. 1838, was the eldest son in a family of four sons and two daughters. His father, having lost money in Sydney, came to Victoria in 1849 and began life again, first as a contractor in a small way of business, then as a market gardener, near McKinnon in the Brighton suburb of Melbourne; here he soon managed to build and run an inn called the Gardeners' Arms. From the age of eleven Bent worked with his father, and for education depended on his own efforts. Characterised from youth by cheery 'push' and enterprise, he started a small market garden in 1859, taking his own produce weekly to market in a rough cart. In 1861 he became rate-collector for Brighton.

In 1862 Bent made his entry into public life by becoming a member of the Moorabbin shire council, of which he was afterwards president on twelve occasions. In 1871 he entered the Victoria parliament for Brighton, defeating, to general surprise, George Higinbotham [q. v. Suppl. I], one of the greatest public figures in Australia. He represented the constituency with one short interval throughout his career. In 1874 he resigned his position as rate-collector on being also elected to the Brighton borough council, to the business of which he devoted himself despite political calls. Gradually he made his way in parliament and became the life and soul of the attack on (Sir) Graham Berry [q. v. Suppl. II], and a leader of the 'party of combat.' As whip for the opposition in 1877 Bent prevented the Berry government from getting a majority for their reform bill, and eventually in January 1880 brought about the fall of that ministry.

In March 1880 Bent joined the ministry of James Service as vice-president of the board of public works, but went out with his colleagues in August of the same year. In July 1881 he resumed the same position under the title of commissioner of railways and president of the board of land and works in the ministry of Sir Bryan O'Loghlen. In this capacity he was connected with the 'octopus' railway bill; and he was to some extent discredited by his tendency to over-sanguine advertisement. O'Loghlen's government lasted till March 1883, when for a time Bent led the opposition, but his temperament was little 