Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/379

 ii s. i. MAY 7, i9io.) NOTES AND QUERIES.

1. It is improbable that a man old enough to be married in 1766, and having influentia connexions through that marriage, shouk have to wait till 1796 before attaining th rank of captain in the Navy.

2. The M.P, for Newport 1770-74 was son-in-law of *' Peter Burrell, Surveyor General of Crown Lands, who resided at Beckenham,' 1 as MB. BOBBINS states. This is confirmed by the ' Court Kalendar l for 1771, 1772, 1773, 1774, and by Horace Walpole (' Letters, 5 ed. Cunningham, vol. vii p. 223). MR. ROBBINS also correctly tells us that two of Bennet's sisters-in-law were married respectively to the first Earl of Beverley and to the second Duke of Northumberland.

3. In two successive issues of Joshua Wilson's ' Biographical Index to the House of Commons,' corrected respectively (accord- ing to the title-pages) to April, 1807, and February, 1808, R. H. A. Bennet, M.P. for Enniskillen and Launceston at those re- spective dates, is described as captain in the Navy, and as ' ' nephew to Lord Gwydir, the Duchess of Northumberland, the Countess of Beverley, and the Marchioness of Exeter. ? ' Burke, or ' G.E.C.,* or any ordinary Peerage will show that Lord Gwydir was the son of the above-named Peter Burrell, and there- fore (as MB. ROBBINS'S communication implies) brother of the Duchess of North- umberland and the Countess of Beverley. Hence it follows that Capt. Bennet, M.P. in those years, was son of R. H. A. Bennet, M.P. 1770-74.

4. Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1814 (vol. Ixxxiv. pt. i., 1814, p. 45), records the death of "R. H. A. Bennet, Esq.,' 1 on 14 March of that year, "in Privy Garden in his 71st year." I have a similar note from The Times of a few days later than the day of death.

5. Gentleman's Magazine, December, 1818 (vol. Ixxxviii. pt. ii., 1818, p. 570), records the death on " Oct. 11 [1818] at North Court, Isle of Wight, aged 37," of " Capt. Richard Henry Alexander Bennet, R.N. n This was my authority for Capt. Bennet's age, and m this one particular my authority misled

ne. The Times of 14 Oct., 1818, gives the same elate of death, but (no doubt correctly) records the age as " in his 48th year."

6. The will of the R. H. A. Bennet who 1 m 1814 may be seen at Somerset House

U-C.C. 115 Bridport). His names are, of

<-o.irse, given in full. He is described as " of

North Court in the parish of Shorwell, Isle

i Wight, ' and he refers in the body of the

will to his marriage settlement, dated 15 Jan., 1766. He also names his son Richard Henry Alexander Bennet, and two daughters, viz., Emilia -Elizabeth, married to Sir John Swinburne, Bt., and Isabella Julia, married to James W. Gordon. The will is dated 8 May, 1811, and was proved 24 March, 1814.

7. The will of the R. H. A. Bennet who died in 1818 is also at Somerset House (P.C.C. 495 Cresswell), dated 10 July, 1818, proved 26 Nov., 1818. In this will he names his sisters Emilia Elizabeth, wife of Sir John Swinburne, and Isabella Julia Levina, wife of Sir James Willoughby Gordon, K.C.B.

MB. ROBBINS will thus see that I was not " too positive " in assuming the non-identity of the two Bennets.

MB. ROBBINS himself is not immune from blunders. He tells us that Peter Burrell sat for Launceston " from a by-election in 1758 to the dissolution of 1767. n Here are two inaccuracies. Burrell was not elected at the by-election in 1758, nor was he M.P. for Launceston in any part of that year ; and there was no dissolution in 1767.

ALFBED B. BEAVEN.

Leamington.

P.S. I had my doubts about the correct- ness of the age of Capt. Bennet as given in The Gentleman's Magazine, but as I was merely answering a question of G.F.R.B. as to his date of death, I did not go into that question. But if the correct age (47) had Deen given, it would have been equally mpossible for him to be identical with the M.P. of 1774.

There is no doubt that a "Richard Henry Alexander Bennett " represented in Parlia- ment the borough of Newport in Cornwall
 * rom 12 Feb., 1770, to the dissolution in

1774. He was then described, according to the printed return, as "of Beckingham, county Kent.'* Dr. Warner depicts him n 1779 as " a droll little fellow and a sort of privileged man for talking freely to the ladies " (Jesse, ' George Selwyn,' iv. 147). A note on p. 149 of that volume connects lim with Babraham in Cambridgeshire. Some information about the family is in ysons's ' Environs of London ' (sub Becken- ham), iv. 295, 305.

" Richard Henry Alexander Bennet, captain R.N.," sat for Launceston through- out the Parliament of 1802-6, and repre- sented it again from 17 July, 1807, until he accepted the Chiltern Hundreds about April, 1812. In 1807 he was called a post
 * aptain R.N. It seems clear that these two