James Bennett (10 May 1785 – 29 January 1856) was a British printer and book seller who became a publisher. In 1830 he produced a history of

Tewkesbury Tewkesbury ( ) is a medieval market town and civil parish in the north of Gloucestershire, England. The town has significant history in the Wars of the Roses and grew since the building of Tewkesbury Abbey. It stands at the confluence of the Riv ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Well regarded sources also describe him as a

topographer Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scie ...

, but without identifying his contribution to topography.

Life

James Bennett was born at Green Farm, Falfield in

Thornbury, Gloucestershire Thornbury is a market town and civil parish in the South Gloucestershire unitary authority area of England, about 12 miles (19 km) north of Bristol. It had a population of 12,063 at the 2011 Census. The population has risen to 14,496 in the 20 ...

, roughly 15 miles (24 km) north-east of

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

, sited on low ground a few miles inland to the east of the Severn Estuary. His father, an independent farmer called John Bennett, was father to thirteen recorded children, of whom James was the eighth. James attended school at nearby Stone and then embarked on an apprenticeship with George Robbins, a printer in

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

, at that time in the adjacent county of

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. By the time he was 25, he was back in Gloucestershire, now established on the northern edge of the county in

, where he is recorded from 1810 till 1852 as a printer and bookshop owner in premises at 139 High Street. On 1823 he married Anna "Hannah" Maria Phillips, whose father is described as an alderman. The marriage produced five recorded children, four of whom predeceased their father, including two who died in infancy. Bennett took an active role in civic and church affairs, in 1828 being one of those who restored the

Abbey Church in 1828. His commitment to the town was confirmed in 1830 when he published his History of Tewkesbury. The work was based on an existing project by another printer, called William Dyde, but during the next couple of decades it was Bennett who each year produced a succession of expansions and supplements for it, in the "Tewkesbury Register and Magazine" which he published regularly till 1849. He produced an updated and abridged version in 1835, which he termed a "Guide". James Bennett retired from business in 1851, by which time he had become "a person of substance" in Tewkesbury. He died early in 1856.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bennett, James 19th-century printers English printers English antiquarians English publishers (people) 1785 births 1856 deaths People from Tewkesbury 19th-century British businesspeople