Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/51

 Belstead, Francis, J.P. (brother of the preceding), was appointed Assistant Superintendent in the Convict Department, Norfolk Island, in August 1850; Clerk of Petty Sessions at Westbury, Tasmania, in May 1858; Clerk of the Municipal Council in Dec. 1863; Commissioner of Mines and Goldfields, and Magistrate and Coroner at Launceston in Feb. 1883; and Secretary and Chief Commissioner of Mines and Goldfields for Tasmania in Feb. 1886.

Benjamin, Hon. Sir Benjamin, Kt., M.L.C., J. P., eldest son of the late Moses Benjamin, J.P., was born in London in 1834, and arrived in Victoria in 1843. He was elected to the Melbourne City Council in 1870, became alderman in 1881, and was mayor from 1887 to 1889. In the year 1888 he was a commissioner for the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition, and was knighted in 1889 in recognition of his services and hospitalities during the Exhibition year. He is President of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, a trustee of the Jewish Philanthropic Society and the Ladies' Hebrew Benevolent Society, and is the representative of the Melbourne province in the Legislative Council. He is a director of the Colonial Bank of Australasia, and of the Union Trustees' Executors and Agency Company, and is a justice of the peace for Victoria and New South Wales. In 1857 Sir Benjamin Benjamin married Fanny, daughter of Abraham Cohen, of Sydney.

Bennett, David, was born in Dundee in 1830, and apprenticed to Messrs. Kimmond, Hutton & Steel, mechanical engineers in that city. He decided to emigrate, and landed in Melbourne early in 1856. Mr. Bennett entered Langland's Foundry, where he remained many years. He took an important part in support of the Eight Hours Movement, initiated by his fellow-countryman, James Galloway, in Melbourne (1855), and in promoting the Association of Engineers (1858), of which for twenty years he acted as secretary. Mr. Bennett was also one of the founders of the Trades Hall; and for many years acted as honorary secretary to the Trades Hall Council. To this body he was appointed paid secretary in 1888.

Bennett, George, M.D., F.R.C.S., F.L.S., F.Z.S., was born at Plymouth on Jan. 31st, 1804. He visited Ceylon in 1819, and on his return studied for the medical profession, becoming M.R.C.S. (England) in 1828, F.R.C.S. (England) and M.D. of Glasgow University in 1859. After passing the college he took charge of a circumnavigating expedition, the results of which he published in papers contributed to the leading scientific journals. In 1832 he revisited New South Wales to investigate the manners, habits and anatomy of the Monotremata, and the natural history of the colony in general. After visiting Java, Singapore and China, he published his "Wanderings in New South Wales" in 1834, and finally settled in that colony in 1836. He was the first secretary to the Australian Museum, and, although much occupied with his extensive practice as a medical man, was able to add materially to the knowledge of the natural history of New South Wales. He was the first to discover the Nautilus in a living state, and sent a specimen to Professor Owen. In 1860 he published "Gatherings of a Naturalist."

Bennett, Samuel, was a native of Cornwall, and was born on March 20th, 1815. He went to Australia in 1841, having been engaged by Messrs. Stevens & Stokes, of the Sydney Morning Herald, to superintend the typographical department of that paper. Having held this post for seventeen years, Mr. Bennett, in 1859, purchased the Empire newspaper which had been started by Mr. (now Sir) nine years previously. Messrs. Hanson & Bennett conducted the Empire for several years as a daily and weekly journal, Mr. Bennett becoming sole proprietor some time before it ceased publication. He also started in 1867 The Evening News, and in 1870 The Australian Town and Country Journal, a weekly newspaper, both of which achieved phenomenal success. Mr. Bennett was the author of "The History of Australian Discovery and Colonisation," which is recognised as a standard work of reference. He died at his residence, Mundarrah Towers, Little Coogee, Sydney, N.S.W., on June 2nd, 1878.

Bennett, William Christopher, M.I.C.E., was employed as a pupil on various territorial and railway surveys and other works in Ireland from 1840 to 1845, and as assistant engineer in charge of drainage works, under the Board of Public Works in Ireland, from 1845 to 1852. During 1852-3 he was employed in  35