John Edmund Bentley (1847 – 12 December 1913) was an English sportsman who played in the first international rugby football match in 1871, representing England as a halfback.

Early life

John Edmund Bentley was born in

Calver Calver (Old English ''Calf Slope'') is a village and civil parish in Derbyshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 710. Overview Calver is a small village situated in the Derwent Valley, Derbyshire. The village ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

, the second son of Alfred Crompton, an industrialist and Charlotte Selina Wilson. Alfred Crompton Bentley (12 January 1812 – 1857) was the son of John Bentley and Martha Chetham, and younger brother to the wealthy John Wansey Nathaniel Bentley. He had married Charlotte Selina Wilson on 28 April 1842. He became an industrialist and at the time of John's birth had moved his family to

, where was managing a cotton spinning business at Calver Mills, near

Bakewell Bakewell is a market town and civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales district of Derbyshire, England, known also for its local Bakewell pudding. It lies on the River Wye, about 13 miles (21 km) south-west of Sheffield. In the 2011 census, ...

, along with Robert Philips Greg. John attended

Merchant Taylors School Small things grow in harmony , established = , closed = , coordinates = , pushpin_map = , type = Independent day school , religion = Church o ...

in Middlesex, where the sport of rugby was in its infancy. After leaving school he stayed in London and joined the civil service. Some time after his father's death in 1857 the family moved to London and by 1861 were resident in the London parish of Kensington St Mary Abbott. Here John resided with his mother, his older sister Charlotte, older brother Alfred, and younger siblings, Eleanor, Walter and Arthur. The family were still living in

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

in 18711871 England Census, Class: RG10; Piece: 35; Folio: 32; Page: 56; GSU roll: 838760.

Rugby union

Bentley, having played at school,''Merchant Taylors' School register, 1851-1920'', p334, (Merchant Taylors' School (London, England)), E. P. Hart – 1923 did not play for the school's well known old boys side, Old Merchant Taylors, because his playing years pre-dated its formation. Old boys from the school had been instrumental in the founding of

Wasps A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...

, but that was an open club based in north London and Bentley was based south of the river Thames. His club of choice was the once famous

Gipsies Football Club The Gipsies Football Club was a short lived 19th century rugby football club that was notable for being one of the twenty-one founding members of the Rugby Football Union, as well as producing a number of international players in the sport's ear ...

, based in

Peckham Peckham () is a district in southeast London, within the London Borough of Southwark. It is south-east of Charing Cross. At the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 Census the Peckham ward had a population of 14,720. History "Peckham" is a Saxon p ...

, that would afterwards become a founding member of the

Rugby Football Union The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the Sports governing body, national governing body for rugby union in England. It was founded in 1871, and was the sport's international governing body prior to the formation of what is now known as World Rugby ...

in 1871. His performances for the Gipsies produced an invitation to represent England in the first ever international in 1871 at

Raeburn Place Raeburn Place is the main street of the suburb of Stockbridge, Edinburgh, Scotland, and the name of the playing fields there. Rugby The first ever international rugby football game was played on the playing fields at Raeburn Place on 27 Ma ...

in Scotland. England were to lose this encounter, but Bentley was also involved in the return match the following year at

The Oval The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since ...

where England were the victors. Arthur Guillemard of the Chislehurst-based

West Kent Football Club The West Kent Football Club was a short-lived 19th century rugby football club that was notable for being one of the twenty-one founding members of the Rugby Football Union, as well as producing a number of international players in the sport's ea ...

, who also played in those first two international games, said of Bentley that he was very fast and much helped by his weight and strength, "which on one occasion at Chislehurst enabled him to run-in carrying two of his opponents on his back as if they were rag dolls". Bentley continued to watch international rugby right up to his last years. His obituary in his old school's magazine, The Taylorian of 1914, recalled that ''"he appeared at the South Africa v. England Match last year wearing in his button·hole the old English rose that had figured on his jersey in his International Matches."''a history of the OMTRFC 1882-1982
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Career and later life

John Edmund Bentley married Margaret Richardson, eldest daughter of George Clerihew, MD Inspector-General of Hospitals, on 23 April 1874 at St Barnabas, Kensington.''

The Medical Times and Gazette ''The Medical Times and Gazette'' was one of the principal medical journals of 19th century Britain. The paper was established in January 1852, and ceased publishing in December 1885. It incorporated the earlier ''Medical Times'' and the ''Londo ...

'', p494, 1874 The couple quickly had two children,

Edmund Clerihew Bentley Edmund Clerihew Bentley (10 July 1875 – 30 March 1956), who generally published under the names E. C. Bentley or E. Clerihew Bentley, was a popular English novelist and humorist, and inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse ...

(born 1 July 1875) and Margaret Helen Elizabeth Bentley (born 1877). The family lived in Hammersmith, London and John's occupation was a professional clerk, by 1881 being a Clerk in General Office of the Supreme Court of Judicature. John and Margaret had at least two more children, Francis Bernard Bentley and Walter Basil Bentley and by 1891 were residing with John's uncle John Nathaniel Bentley. In 1901 John was still practicing as a clerk, being a civil service clerk 2nd class. John's eldest son,

(1875–1956) became a famous writer, journalist, and was also renowned as the inventor of the 'clerihew', a form of poetry.Harold Oxbury, ''Great Britons: twentieth-century lives'', p32 (Oxford University Press, 1985) , John Edmund Bentley died on 12 December 1913.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bentley, John Edmund 1847 births 1913 deaths English rugby union players Rugby union halfbacks England international rugby union players People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood