Biography

Henry Bennett (1815 - 1900) was the eldest son of Henry Bennett who arrived in Van Diemen’s Land with his three sons, Henry, Samuel and Francis in about 1837. Henry, the father, returned to England after a short time and Francis went to live in Sydney. The two remaining brothers, Henry and Samuel, opened a trading post at the north-west corner of St. John and Brisbane Streets. Much later Samuel returned to England.
Henry lived at ‘Claremont’ in Clarence Street. He married Mary Ann Ring at St David’s Church, Hobart in 1841. They had three sons and three daughters, of whom Marion was one. She did not marry but lived at home with her parents.

Henry Bennett died in Launceston on 22^nd September 1900. He and his family had been members of St. John’s Church for many years and during the building extensions at St. John’s, from 1901 to 1911, Marion Bennett donated a window for the chapel in memory of her father. The subject of the window is ‘Christ blesses the little children’. Some years later William Ring Bennett gave the Tasmanian oak pews in the nave of this same church in memory of his aunt, Marion Bennett. No inscription has been placed on these pews, as yet. Some of them were carved by Hugh Cunningham and later Gordon Cumming carved more.

Marion Bennett died on 20^th November 1935 at the age of 91 years. The inscription on the window reads:
IN MEMORY OF
HENRY BENNETT OF CLAREMONT, LAUNCESTON
BORN 1815 DIED 1900, AGED 85 YEARS.
‘THE SOULS OF THE RIGHTEOUS ARE IN THE HAND OF GOD.’

Source

Extract from 'Engraved in Memory' by J.S.Gill. 1988