BENNETT, John Sydney/Sidney
Born March 1881; died 2 December 1918; buried 4 December 1918; age 37
John BENNETT’s parents married at the church of St Barnabas in Hornsey Road, Islington on 31 March 1880. His 34-year-old father, John Mountfield Bennett, was described as a ‘gentleman’ on his marriage certificate and as a ‘farmer’ in the 1871 census. His 29-year-old mother, Clarisse Selina BRINDLE, was the daughter of a ‘French merchant’. Soon after their marriage John and Clarissa sailed to New Zealand where John Sidney Bennett was born in Nelson in March 1881. In 1882 he was followed by the only other child of the marriage, a brother, Harold Mountfield Bennett.
John Mountfield Bennett’s agrarian experience in England was extended by work as a hop drier in Hastings and in 1896 as a rabbiter on the large Brancepeth station in the Wairarapa (one of New Zealand’s few sheep stations with a wide-ranging library available to employees). As the 20th century unfolded in New Zealand, John Mountfield took up trading as a tea merchant to support his family and he continued to build this business until his death at the age of 72 in 1917. The family lived in the Masterton area during the 1890’s, but sometime after 1900 moved to Wellington. By the time the Electoral Roll for 1905/06 was compiled John and Clarissa and their boys were resident at 30 Austin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, and John’s occupation was “tea merchant”. Their son John Sidney became an engineer, and in April 1906 married Jane NAUGHTON (known as Jennie). John’s brother Harold married also in 1906, in February, to Leola SCHRODER.
John and Jennie lived at 35 Waipapa Road, Hataitai for several years, and their first two children, Leo Sydney Mountfield (March 1908) and Jean Mountfield (September 1909) attended Roseneath School.
Born March 1881; died 2 December 1918; buried 4 December 1918; age 37
John BENNETT’s parents married at the church of St Barnabas in Hornsey Road, Islington on 31 March 1880. His 34-year-old father, John Mountfield Bennett, was described as a ‘gentleman’ on his marriage certificate and as a ‘farmer’ in the 1871 census. His 29-year-old mother, Clarisse Selina BRINDLE, was the daughter of a ‘French merchant’. Soon after their marriage John and Clarissa sailed to New Zealand where John Sidney Bennett was born in Nelson in March 1881. In 1882 he was followed by the only other child of the marriage, a brother, Harold Mountfield Bennett.
John Mountfield Bennett’s agrarian experience in England was extended by work as a hop drier in Hastings and in 1896 as a rabbiter on the large Brancepeth station in the Wairarapa (one of New Zealand’s few sheep stations with a wide-ranging library available to employees). As the 20th century unfolded in New Zealand, John Mountfield took up trading as a tea merchant to support his family and he continued to build this business until his death at the age of 72 in 1917. The family lived in the Masterton area during the 1890’s, but sometime after 1900 moved to Wellington. By the time the Electoral Roll for 1905/06 was compiled John and Clarissa and their boys were resident at 30 Austin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, and John’s occupation was “tea merchant”. Their son John Sidney became an engineer, and in April 1906 married Jane NAUGHTON (known as Jennie). John’s brother Harold married also in 1906, in February, to Leola SCHRODER.
John and Jennie lived at 35 Waipapa Road, Hataitai for several years, and their first two children, Leo Sydney Mountfield (March 1908) and Jean Mountfield (September 1909) attended Roseneath School.
35 Waipapa Road, Hataitai, Home of John Sidney Bennett c. 1908-1911
By 1914 John had moved his family to First Street, Masterton, and his children attended nearby Lansdowne School. He also changed occupation and became a commercial traveller. Another son, John Douglas Mountfield, was born in 1914 and John and Jennie’s last child was born in March 1917 and named May Patricia Bennett. By the time of her birth the family had returned to Wellington, where they lived at 169 Grafton Road, Roseneath.
In 1916/17 John Bennett was called up for military service and placed on the New Zealand Army Reserve Roll, 2nd Division. After medical examination he was placed in category D - “Wholly unfit for any service whatever”.
His parents had moved to 9 Waitoa Road, Hataitai sometime before 1911, and his father died there on 30 September 1917 and was cremated at Karori Cemetery. Cremation was not a common practice at the time, but had been available at Karori since 1909.
When he became ill with influenza in November 1918 John Sidney Bennett was taken to the Wellington Fever Hospital where he died, intestate, on 2 December 1918, aged only 37. John’s £11/-/- funeral costs in 1918 were met by Mr Naughton of the Government Printing Office, probably his father-in-law.
John’s mother went on to remarry in 1935, at the age of 85, to Frederick Thomas KEEPER whose financial unreliability is widely documented in Papers Past. When she died in 1939, aged 89, she was buried with her son John and the headstone on the plot in the Anglican section of Karori Cemetery also remembers the death of John’s father.
‘John Mountfield Bennett
Sussex England
Died 30 9 1917 AET 72
His wife
Clarisse Selena
Died 2 12 1939 AET 89
Their son
John Sidney
Died 2 12 1918 AET 37.’
It fell to John’s brother, Harold, to meet the purchase costs of the grave for his family of origin, which he did in 1939 when his mother died. Harold Mountfield Bennett, of Napier, took up ophthalmology and spectacle making for which study he must have returned to England where on 18 July 1911 he was granted freedom of the City of London ‘by Redemption in the Company of Spectaclemakers’. Harold had started his career as a chemist but on later electoral rolls in the Hawkes Bay he is described as an optometrist and an ophthalmic optician (1919).
The Mountfield name in this Bennett family is said to be associated with the township or civil parish of Mountfield, Sussex. Sir John Bennett was the father of John Mountfield Bennett, and was therefore John Sidney’s paternal grandfather. Born in 1814 in Greenwich and described as a ‘watchmaker’ and ‘farmer of 297 acres employing 24 men and 4 boys’ in the national census of 1871, Sir John Bennett had a colourful career. He worked as a Cheapside watchmaker from 1846 until retirement in 1889. He was also a sheriff of London and Middlesex, a Lord Lieutenant of the City of London, a common councillor for the ward of Cheap on the City of London Corporation, a Liveryman of the Spectaclemakers’, Clockmakers’ and Lorimers’ companies, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, served terms on the London School Board, stood unsuccessfully for Parliament on three occasions and was elected alderman for Cheap ward on three occasions but unable to serve when deemed to be ‘not of fit character’. He was knighted in 1872 by Queen Victoria as part of celebrations on the recovery of the Prince of Wales from typhoid.
An entry in Wikipedia describes Sir John Bennett as ‘flamboyant’, arousing ‘in his contemporaries varying degrees of ridicule, hostility, and admiration’, while one obituary describes him as ‘a man of strong character, very eccentric, and one of the most familiar figures in London’. On the other hand, the family of his daughter, Alice, found him to be ‘abominable’ and ‘something of a monster’.
How might we account for these negative assessments and for his being not ‘of fit character’? Presumably this related to the large family he fathered with a long-term mistress (Aimee or Annie Guilbert, a widow) who squabbled over his probate after the death of Sir John in 1897 while in retirement at St Leonards-on-Sea. Coyly there is no mention of this or his second family in the DNB entry recording his life and varied contribution!
We have to hope that New Zealand proved to be far enough away for his descendants to happily live out their lives without any possibility of opprobrium by association with Sir John and his second family, though they were clearly proud of their association with him which was referred to in the death notice for John Sidney in the Evening Post on 5th December 1918:
BENNETT — On the 2nd December, 1918, at the Wellington Fever Hospital, John Sidney, eldest son of the late J. Mountfield Bennett and Clarice Bennett, of 9, Waitoa Road, Hataitai, and grandson of the late Sir John Bennett, of Cheapside, London; aged 37 years.
In 1916/17 John Bennett was called up for military service and placed on the New Zealand Army Reserve Roll, 2nd Division. After medical examination he was placed in category D - “Wholly unfit for any service whatever”.
His parents had moved to 9 Waitoa Road, Hataitai sometime before 1911, and his father died there on 30 September 1917 and was cremated at Karori Cemetery. Cremation was not a common practice at the time, but had been available at Karori since 1909.
When he became ill with influenza in November 1918 John Sidney Bennett was taken to the Wellington Fever Hospital where he died, intestate, on 2 December 1918, aged only 37. John’s £11/-/- funeral costs in 1918 were met by Mr Naughton of the Government Printing Office, probably his father-in-law.
John’s mother went on to remarry in 1935, at the age of 85, to Frederick Thomas KEEPER whose financial unreliability is widely documented in Papers Past. When she died in 1939, aged 89, she was buried with her son John and the headstone on the plot in the Anglican section of Karori Cemetery also remembers the death of John’s father.
‘John Mountfield Bennett
Sussex England
Died 30 9 1917 AET 72
His wife
Clarisse Selena
Died 2 12 1939 AET 89
Their son
John Sidney
Died 2 12 1918 AET 37.’
It fell to John’s brother, Harold, to meet the purchase costs of the grave for his family of origin, which he did in 1939 when his mother died. Harold Mountfield Bennett, of Napier, took up ophthalmology and spectacle making for which study he must have returned to England where on 18 July 1911 he was granted freedom of the City of London ‘by Redemption in the Company of Spectaclemakers’. Harold had started his career as a chemist but on later electoral rolls in the Hawkes Bay he is described as an optometrist and an ophthalmic optician (1919).
The Mountfield name in this Bennett family is said to be associated with the township or civil parish of Mountfield, Sussex. Sir John Bennett was the father of John Mountfield Bennett, and was therefore John Sidney’s paternal grandfather. Born in 1814 in Greenwich and described as a ‘watchmaker’ and ‘farmer of 297 acres employing 24 men and 4 boys’ in the national census of 1871, Sir John Bennett had a colourful career. He worked as a Cheapside watchmaker from 1846 until retirement in 1889. He was also a sheriff of London and Middlesex, a Lord Lieutenant of the City of London, a common councillor for the ward of Cheap on the City of London Corporation, a Liveryman of the Spectaclemakers’, Clockmakers’ and Lorimers’ companies, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, served terms on the London School Board, stood unsuccessfully for Parliament on three occasions and was elected alderman for Cheap ward on three occasions but unable to serve when deemed to be ‘not of fit character’. He was knighted in 1872 by Queen Victoria as part of celebrations on the recovery of the Prince of Wales from typhoid.
An entry in Wikipedia describes Sir John Bennett as ‘flamboyant’, arousing ‘in his contemporaries varying degrees of ridicule, hostility, and admiration’, while one obituary describes him as ‘a man of strong character, very eccentric, and one of the most familiar figures in London’. On the other hand, the family of his daughter, Alice, found him to be ‘abominable’ and ‘something of a monster’.
How might we account for these negative assessments and for his being not ‘of fit character’? Presumably this related to the large family he fathered with a long-term mistress (Aimee or Annie Guilbert, a widow) who squabbled over his probate after the death of Sir John in 1897 while in retirement at St Leonards-on-Sea. Coyly there is no mention of this or his second family in the DNB entry recording his life and varied contribution!
We have to hope that New Zealand proved to be far enough away for his descendants to happily live out their lives without any possibility of opprobrium by association with Sir John and his second family, though they were clearly proud of their association with him which was referred to in the death notice for John Sidney in the Evening Post on 5th December 1918:
BENNETT — On the 2nd December, 1918, at the Wellington Fever Hospital, John Sidney, eldest son of the late J. Mountfield Bennett and Clarice Bennett, of 9, Waitoa Road, Hataitai, and grandson of the late Sir John Bennett, of Cheapside, London; aged 37 years.
Sir John Bennett ('Men of the Day. No. 272.'), by Sir Leslie Ward
Published in Vanity Fair 13 January 1883 - NPG D44103 - © National Portrait Gallery, London
Published in Vanity Fair 13 January 1883 - NPG D44103 - © National Portrait Gallery, London
Caricature by "Spy" published in Vanity Fair in 1883
Researched and written by Jenny Robertson
Grave Information:
Section: CH ENG2
Plot: 171 E