NEWTON BENNET

Newton Benett was born in London, the youngest child of William Benett, a master in the High Court. He was collaterally descended from Sir Isaac Newton. At the age of seventeen, he devoted himself to art, studying under Paul Naftel, and assimilating the influences of J M W Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites. He then exhibited landscapes and architectural subjects in watercolour and oil at leading London venues, including the Royal Academy, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours and such leading dealers as the Dudley Gallery, the New Gallery and the Fine Art Society. He befriended many artists including Alfred Fripp, Arthur Hughes, George Dunlop Leslie and Alfred Parsons. He moved out of London in the early eighteen-eighties, and then lived variously in Hampshire, Dorset and Oxfordshire. He died in Dorchester-on-Thames on 24 November 1914.