Henry Dent, Esq.
(1834-1893)
23 July 1861

Volume 4, page 268, sitting number 5144.

[Identified as ‘Henry Dent, Esq.’ in the Silvy daybooks, given the other portraits acquired with this one, this must be Henry William Dent of the Bengal Civil Service.]

Born in 1834, Henry William Dent was the son of Robert Dent (1793-1835) of the Bengal Civil Service and his wife Charlotte. He was baptised on 12 March 1834 at Mitcham in Surrey.

On 10 July 1856 at Bromley in Kent he married his first cousin, Emma Sabine Dent, youngest daughter of William Dent of Bickley near Bromley. 

‘On the 10th inst., at Bromley, Henry William Dent, Esq., of the Bengal Civil Service, youngest son of the late Robert Dent, Esq., to Emma Sabine, youngest daughter of Wm. Dent. Esq., of Bickley’ (Kentish Independent, 26 July 1856). 

On 11 May 1860 he was a ‘merchant’ initiated into the Freemasons at Agra in India. 

At least three of his uncles — Thomas, Lancelot and Wilkinson — were directors of the trading firm Dent & Co. of Hong Kong, one of the largest hongs in China. In August 1860 Dent & Co. announced in various newspapers that as of 1 July 1860 Henry William Dent ‘is admitted a Partner in our Firm’ (China Mail, 10 August 1860).

He was later a ‘Barrister-at-Law in practice,’ according to the census of 1881.

Henry William Dent died on 2 November 1893 at 8 Talgarth Road, West Kensington, leaving an estate valued at £2494.