AustLit logo
Samuel Bennett Samuel Bennett i(A32377 works by)
Also writes as: 'Beta'
Born: Established: 1815 Cornwall,
c
England,
c
c
United Kingdom (UK),
c
Western Europe, Europe,
; Died: Ceased: 2 Jun 1878 Coogee, Randwick area, Sydney Eastern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 1841
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

Samuel Bennett, newspaper proprietor, historian and journalist, was the son of the Reverend Christopher Bennett and his wife Anne. He migrated to New South Wales in 1841 and became head of the printing department at the Sydney Morning Herald. In 1859 he resigned and, with William Hanson (q.v.), revived the then defunct Empire. During the 1860s, parts of Bennett's History of Australian Discovery and Colonization appeared weekly in the Empire. Business pressures left him unable to finish this work and, in 1867, he published it in incomplete form. In that year he also began Sydney's first evening paper, the Evening News. In 1870 he added the weekly Australian Town and Country Journal to his stable. Financial issues forced the amalgamation of the Empire and the Evening News in 1875.

Bennett was also for a time something of a benefactor to Henry Kendall (q.v), and it was probably due to Bennett, that Kendall's early poems featured so prominently in the Empire during the early 1860s. During the mid-1860s, Bennett's daughter Rose was briefly romantically involved with Kendall.

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Bennett might also have been the author 'Beta' whose poem 'England's Armed Neutrality' appeared in the Empire in July 1859. During the later 1850s, Bennett contributed poems to the Sydney Morning Herald under the writing name 'Beta', and it is possible that he intented to continue this practice at the Empire when he and William Hanson became proprietors in 1859. 'England's Armed Neutrality' appears to have been the only poem by 'Beta' to have been published in the Empire.
  • See also the full Australian Dictionary of Biography Online entry for Samuel Bennett (1815-1878).
Last amended 28 Aug 2013 11:41:00
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X