Author: Benson, White
Biography:
BENSON, White (1777-1805: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised 7 Feb. 1777 at Ripon Cathedral, Yorkshire, the second of perhaps as many as eight children of Edward Benson, wine and spirit merchant, and a widow, Ann Normington (formerly Smith). His younger sister, Maria Benson (1781-1812), was a novelist and author of Thoughts on Education (1806). Nothing is known of his early education. He was commissioned lieutenant in the 6th Royals and served in the Irish rebellion of 1798. Many of the poems in his Poems and Ballads (1805?) record scenes and experiences in Ireland. The volume has been dated 1810 and was printed in Huddersfield but there is nothing to indicate posthumous publication and the reasons for the place of publication remain unknown. He left the army with the rank of Captain and returned to Yorkshire. He married Eleanor Sarah Benson, a first cousin, on 25 Feb. 1802 at Saint Martin, Coney Street, York. They had one son, Edward White Benson, baptised in Pontefract on 6 Jan. 1805. He was known as a spendthrift, and went through his wife’s property with his father stepping in to save her land at Pateley. His father appears to have handed over the wine and spirit business in York in Aug. 1804 but, possibly due to ill health, White Benson retired from the family business in Mar. 1805 and the house, warehouse, and outbuildings, at St. Saviourgate, York, were put up for sale. He died in Oct. or possibly Nov. 1805 but no burial record has been discovered. In 1807, his father stepped in again to help his son’s widow and her son. (ancestry.co.uk 17 Mar. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 17 Mar. 2023; Arthur Christopher Benson, Genealogy of the Family of Benson [1894], 12-13; London Gazette 18 Aug. 1804; York Herald 9 Mar. 1805; Monthly Magazine 22.2 [Nov. 1805], 379) AA