Reverend William Benn
(1815-1894)
8 August 1862

Volume 9, page 46, sitting number 11,180.

Identified in the Silvy daybooks as 'Rev. J. W. Benn' and on the back of the carte as 'Rev. W. Benn,' this is probably Reverend William Heygate Benn, Rector of Churchover, near Rugby in Warwickshire.

According to Foster's Alumni Oxoniensis, 1715-1886, Reverend Benn was the second son of Thomas Benn of Rugby [a solicitor] and he was born in or about 1815. [He was baptised at St Andrew's in Rugby on 24 July 1815.] He was educated at Exeter College and Merton College, Oxford (BA, 1838; MA, 1841). He became Rector of Churchover in 1853.

He died, aged 78, on 7 February 1894 at Rugby. According to a brief announcement of his death in the Northampton Mercury (9 February 1894), he was the Rector of Churchover 'for 42 years.'