10 Facts About Edward Bentham

Edward Bentham was an Oxford based theologian who in 1763, with some evident reluctance, became Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University.

Edward Bentham was born at Ely where his father, the Rev Samuel Bentham, was employed as a minor canon at the cathedral.

The Benthams were a clerical family, and Edward was the sixth priest in a continuous descent from Thomas Bentham, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield.

Edward Bentham studied under the supervision of John Burton, a cousin who became a friend.

Edward Bentham set in place reforms to address the "great confusion" in the "affairs of the [cathedral] treasury" which he found on taking up his appointment.

The professorship came with an automatic entitlement to a canonry at Christ Church: unfortunately the eighth prebendary chair to which this canonry entitled him was lower in the Christ Church cathedral hierarchy than the fifth prebendary chair which Edward Bentham had up till now occupied since 1754.

Greaves, was that Edward Bentham did not charge any fees to students attending the lectures.

Edward Bentham enjoyed good health, but during his final years suffered a sporadic weakness in his eyes, attributed to "too free an use of them when he was young".

Edward Bentham had a wide circle of friends in the academic world, but he had his critics, and he seems to have made a long term enemy of William King, the Master of St Mary Hall, who after his death described Bentham waspishly as "Half a casuist, half lawyer, half Courtier, half Cit, Half Tory, half Whig ".

The criticisms are more quotable, and more quoted, than the plaudits, but it is nevertheless clear that Edward Bentham was widely admired and liked.