Author: Bennett, George J.
Biography:
BENNETT, George John (1800-79: ODNB)
He was born in Ripon, Yorkshire, to George Bennett, an actor who was known as “the father of the Norwich stage,” and his wife Harriet Morland of Kendal, Westmorland. He served in the navy (1813-17) before his theatrical debut at King’s Lynn, Norfolk, in 1818. He worked in theatres in Bath before moving to London where an initial performance in 1823, as Richard III at Covent Garden, was unsuccessful. In 1824 he played Conrad in Der Freischütz, or, The Seventh Bullet at the Lyceum and he subsequently worked at Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and Sadler’s Wells. He spent time in Dublin and married Jane Daly at the Church of the Passage West (St. Mary’s) in County Cork on 23 Aug. 1828: a newspaper notice identifies the groom as “of Theatre Royal Dublin.” They had four daughters and three sons before Jane died in London in Aug. 1854. Although he forged a successful career in the theatre, the family’s financial situation was precarious and Bennett declared insolvency in May 1841 when he was running a lodging house at 28 York Street, Portman Square. He gave up the theatre for professional photography in 1862 and established a business in Chepstow, Wales. He died at Edmonton, north London, on 21 Sept. 1879 and was buried in the cemetery at Nunhead, London. He wrote two other plays: The Justiza: A Tale of Arragon (1848) and Retribution, or, Love’s Trials (1850). It is unlikely that The Pedestrian’s Guide Through North Wales (1838) “by G. J. Bennett, Esq.” is by him. (ODNB 29 Mar. 2023; ancestry.co.uk 29 Mar. 2023; Southern Reporter 26 Aug. 1828; Hertford Mercury 15 May 1841; Norfolk Annals: A Chronological Record of Remarkable Events [1901]) SR