George Bennet (missionary)
George Bennet (16 April 1774 – 13 November 1841) was an English missionary from Sheffield, Yorkshire. He travelled widely in Asia.
Life
Bennet was a Congregationalist organiser in Sheffield.[1] In 1821 he set out with Daniel Tyerman, supported financially by the London Missionary Society. They travelled together to China, Southeast Asia, and India.[2][3]
Bennet stopped in Macau during his Pacific voyage. He was impressed by the garden and aviary of opium trader Thomas Beale, devoting 45 pages of his travelogue to them.[4] Bennet and Tyerman made an extended stay in Tahiti, and Bennet's letters from there were published in the Sheffield Iris by James Montgomery.[5] Tyerman died in Madagascar, where they had set up missions with the support of King Radama I.[6]
After his voyage Bennet gave historical artifacts that he had collected to the London Natural History Museum. He died in London on 13 November 1841.[7] He is buried with an inscribed monument in his memory in Sheffield General Cemetery.
References
- Alan Kidd; David Nicholls (8 October 1999). Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism: Middle-Class Identity in Britain, 1800-1940. Manchester University Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-0-7190-5676-5.
- Montgomery, James; Daniel Tyerman; George Bennet (1832). Journal of voyages and travels by the Rev. Daniel Tyerman and George Bennet, Esq: deputed from the London missionary society, to visit their various stations in the South Sea Islands, China, India, etc. between the years 1821 and 1829, Volume 3. London Missionary Society.
- Porter, Andrew N. (2004). Religion versus empire?: British Protestant missionaries and overseas expansion, 1700-1914. Manchester University Press. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-7190-2823-6.
- Fan, Fa-ti (2004). British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. pp. 44-45.
- Alan Kidd; David Nicholls (8 October 1999). Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism: Middle-Class Identity in Britain, 1800–1940. Manchester University Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-7190-5676-5.
- Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 57. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- Register of Missionaries, Deputations, etc., from 1796 to 1896. 1896. p. 353.