Henry Boswell Bennett

Who was Henry Boswell Bennett?

Lieutenant Henry Boswell Bennett of the 45th Regiment of Foot became on 31 May 1838 the first officer to die in the service of Queen Victoria when he was shot by John Nichols Thom in Bossenden Wood in Kent.

Bennett was of Irish parentage, born in 1809, the son of Major William Bennett formerly of the 69th Regiment of Foot, and the grandson of Richard Bennett who was murdered during the Wexford Rebellion of 1798. An uncle, Richard Newton Bennett was chief justice of the Island of Tobago. Bennett joined his father's regiment, the 69th, as an ensign and then, in June 1827, exchanged into the 45th Foot. He spent the next ten years with the regiment in the India, returning to Europe on leave in July 1837. The regiment returned from India the following March and Bennett rejoined them at Canterbury barracks.

Since January 1838 a man who went by the name of Sir William Courtenay, but was believed to be a Cornish maltster called John Nichols Thom, and who had been released from Barming Heath Asylum some months previously, had been riding through East Kent and gaining a following amongst the labourers, smallholders, artisans and tradespeople of the area between Canterbury and Faversham.