BENNET, Philip (1795-1866), of 39 Lowndes Street, London; Rougham Hall, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk and Tollesbury Lodge, Essex

Bennet, who described himself as ‘born and bred’ in Conservative principles, represented Suffolk West for fourteen years, earning a reputation as a zealous defender of the agricultural interest.1Morning Post, 4 July 1845. He was the great-grandson of Philip Bennet (d. 1761), MP for Shaftesbury and later Bath in the mid-eighteenth century, who had inherited the manor of Widcombe, Somerset, before embarking upon ‘a career of wild dissipation, squandering his fortune with reckless prodigality’.2R.E.M. Peach, The life and times of Ralph Allen, of Prior Park, Bath (1895), 206-13. Bennet (d. 1761) sat for Shaftesbury, 1734-35, 1738-41, and Bath 1741-47: HP Commons, 1715-1754, i. 454-5. Bennet’s father, also Philip, of Tollesbury Lodge, Essex, had inherited Rougham Hall in Suffolk through his marriage in 1794 to Jane Judith, daughter and sole heir of the Reverend Roger Kedington, and was high sheriff of Suffolk in 1821.3Burke’s genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry (1847), 83-4. After graduating from Cambridge, where he gained the classical prizes of his college, Emmanuel, two years in succession, Bennet pursued the life of a county squire on the Rougham estates. In 1831 he became captain of the West Suffolk yeomanry, a position he was to hold for over thirty years.4Bury and Norwich Post, 21 Aug. 1866. He came forward as an anti-Reformer for Bury St. Edmunds at the 1831 general election, but after an arduous canvass was defeated in third place by just one vote.5HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 41. M. Stenton, Who’s who of British Members of Parliament, 1832-1885 (1976), i. 29, incorrectly states that he was defeated by one vote at the 1832 general election.

In July 1845 Bennet was put up for a vacancy at Suffolk West, created by the death of the sitting member, Robert Rushbrooke. At the meeting of the local Conservative party to select a candidate, there had been some concern about Bennet’s lack of oratorical skills, but his commitment to agricultural protection was unquestionable and a requisition was subsequently got up for his candidature.6Ipswich Journal, 28 June 1845; Morning Post, 4 July 1845. Appearing before Conservative electors for the first time, Bennet admitted that he ‘was no orator’ but had ‘an independent voice, and meant to exercise it’.7Morning Post, 4 July 1845. At the nomination he pledged to defend the rural interest and was returned unopposed.8Ibid., 8 July 1845.

Although Bennet, in the words of one national newspaper, had ‘wisely’ claimed ‘no pretensions to oratory’, he used his maiden speech, on the subject of the corn laws, to deliver a visceral attack on Peel, whose ‘desertion of principle menaced the country at large’, 20 Feb. 1846.9Ibid., 4 July 1845. He subsequently criticised the premier for claiming that the price of wheat had no effect on the wages of the agricultural labourer, 15 May 1846, a theme Bennet would reiterate throughout his parliamentary career. He voted against repeal of the corn laws, 15 May 1846, and Peel’s Irish coercion bill, 25 June 1846, the defeat of which finally brought down the beleaguered ministry. He also opposed John Bowring’s motion to reduce duty on foreign wines, asserting that it would be better to repeal the malt tax, ‘which pressed most heavily on the labouring classes of this country’, 13 May 1847.

At the 1847 general election Bennet condemned Conservative MPs who had broken their promises on the corn laws, calling them ‘a disgrace on the representation of this kingdom’, and pledged that he would remain implacably opposed to the endowment of the Roman Catholic church.10Bury and Norwich Post, 21 July, 4 Aug. 1847. He was re-elected without opposition. A steady attender, he thereafter followed Disraeli into the division lobby on most major issues. A member of the National Club, which had been founded in 1845 to promote parliamentary Protestantism, Bennet voted with Charles Newdegate, one of the Club’s most active members, against the Catholic relief bill, 8 Dec. 1847, and the Jewish disabilities bill, 11 Feb. 1848.11J. Wolffe, The Protestant crusade in Great Britain, 1829-1860 (1991), 212. He also backed David Urquhart’s motion criticising the Liberal ministry’s handling of the ecclesiastical titles bill, 9 May 1851.12In the 1849 session he was present for 68 out of 219 divisions: Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. He was in minorities for a reconsideration of the corn laws, 14 May 1850, and the relief of the distress of land owners, 13 Feb. 1851. His handful of known speeches in his first full Parliament all concerned the agricultural interest, which he felt the queen’s speeches ignored.13Hansard, 5 Feb. 1849, vol. 102, cc. 270-1; 5 Feb. 1851, vol. 114, cc. 153-4. He was also adamant in his belief that, despite arguments from the government to the contrary, the wages of agricultural labourers in Suffolk had fallen under free trade, 4 Feb., 12 Mar. 1850.

Returned unopposed at the 1852 general election, Bennet declined to respond to his seconder’s assertion that there ‘was no hope of their being able to return to protection’, choosing instead to speak in general terms about the need for ‘preservation over destruction’.14Daily News, 4 July 1852. He opposed Charles Villiers’s motion praising corn law repeal, but backed Palmerston’s subsequent motion in support of free trade, 26 Nov. 1852. Thereafter he made no further speeches concerning the agricultural interest, though he continued to attend steadily: in 1853 he was present for 66 out of 191 divisions; in 1856 he was present for 54 out of 198.15Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions of the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 18. He backed Roebuck’s motion for an inquiry into the condition of the army, 29 Jan. 1855, and Disraeli’s motion criticising the management of the Crimean war, 25 May 1855. He opposed the Maynooth grant, 19 Feb. 1857, and voted for Cobden’s censure of the government over the events at Canton, 3 Mar. 1857. At the subsequent general election he shied away from explicitly attacking Palmerston over the bombing of Canton, offering only a prosaic account of his own conduct in the Commons, and was returned unopposed.16Bury and Norwich Post, 17 Mar., 31 Mar. 1857. He was absent for the critical vote on Palmerston’s conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858, and was now a largely silent Member, making only a handful of brief interventions on local matters, one of which was in opposition to a proposed rise in county rates to fund reformatory schools, 9 July 1857. He voted for the Derby ministry’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859.

Bennet’s parliamentary career ended in farce at the 1859 general election. The retirement of his long-time colleague Harry Waddington heralded the arrival of two fresh Conservative candidates for Suffolk West: the earl of Jermyn, eldest son of the marquess of Bristol, whose family’s vast wealth and estates in the region made him a formidable candidate, and Windsor Parker, a prominent member of the local party. Put on the defensive, Bennet accepted Parker’s invitation to form a coalition, but, when this proved unpopular with his supporters, he withdrew from the contest, announcing that his candidature might ‘endanger the cordial union of the great Conservative party’.17Daily News, 11 Apr. 1859; Essex Standard, 15 Apr. 1859. A meeting of his supporters subsequently passed a resolution to return Bennet, as ‘he had the greatest claim on the seat’, and they duly put his name forward at the nomination, though Bennet, who had given no public response to his supporters’ campaign, did not appear.18Ipswich Journal, 23 Apr. 1859; Bury and Norwich Post, 26 Apr. 1859. Amidst tumultuous uproar, his seconder, William Biddell, accused Parker’s supporters of attempting to ‘seize the whole machinery of the Conservative party’ for their own ends, and called upon Liberal electors to back Bennet.19Bury and Norwich Post, 3 May 1859. However, following an extremely bitter contest, Bennet was defeated in third place, 77 votes behind Parker. Bennet, who is not known to have sought a return to the Commons, continued to serve as captain of the West Suffolk militia until 1864.20Ibid., 23 Aug. 1866.

Bennet died at Rougham Hall, Suffolk, in August 1866.21Ibid., 21 Aug. 1866. He left effects valued at under £3,000 and was succeeded by his only son, Philip, a lieutenant in the royal horse guards.22England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, 20 Sept. 1866. A selection of Bennet’s correspondence with Charles Yorke, 4^th earl of Hardwicke, while postmaster-general, is held by the British Library, London.23BL Add. 35794-35808 passim.