Thomas Bennet

Thomas Bennet (1673–1728) was an English clergyman, known for controversial and polemical writings, and as a Hebraist. Life Bennet was born at Salisbury, Wiltshire, on 7 May 1673, and was educated at a free school there, the City Grammar School. He entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1688, before he was fifteen, going on to take the degrees of B.A. and M.A. by 1694, and was elected a Fellow of his college. In 1700, by chance, Bennet went to Colchester on the death of a clergyman friend there, John Rayne, and was called on to preach the funeral sermon. He was appointed to succeed Rayne and was instituted on 15 January 1701. He left Colchester at the end of the decade, and became deputy chaplain to Chelsea Hospital. He preached a funeral sermon at St Olave's Church, Southwark, and was chosen lecturer there. He was appointed morning preacher at St Lawrence Jewry under John Mapletoft, and was also presented by the dean and chapter of St Paul's Cathedral to St Giles Cripplegate. The presentation, however, involved him in disputes over a tithe on peas and beans.