Thomas Starling Benson & family
Blazon
Shield: Argent on a chevron cotised between two trefoils in chief and a bear's head erased in base sable collared and muzzled or, a sun in splendour between two crosses crosslet of the last.
Crest: The sun rising from clouds proper in front a demi lion gules charged on the shoulder with a trefoil argent the sinister paw resting on an escutcheon azure thereon a bear's head erased of the third collared and muzzled also guiles.
Motto: Opes parit Industria.
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| Thomas Starling Benson |
Thomas Starling Benson (1775-1858) was a Dulwich-born businessman whose paternal grandfather had moved south from Loftus Hill near Stavely in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Thomas served as High Sheriff of Surrey in 1812-13, but also developed business interests in south Wales as part of Benson, Usborne, & Co, copper merchants.
Thomas married three times, firstly, in c.1800, to Elizabeth Newberry (1773-1801), then, on 19 August 1803, to her sister Hannah (1782-1815), and finally, on 1st October 1816, to Elizabeth Meux (1794-1824), who was half his age. He had 11 children, several of whom died young. Among the surviving children were:
By Elizabeth Newberry:
Thomas Benson (1801–1834), who became an army officer and served in the 13th Light Dragoons.
By Hannah Newberry:
Starling Benson (1808-1879), who became a businessman in Swansea, serving as Mayor 1843-44, and Chairman of the Swansea Harbour Trust from 1856 to 1878.
By Elizabeth Meux:
Rev Richard Meux Benson (1824–1915), who, in 1866, co-founded the Society of St John the Evangelist in Cowley, Oxfordshire, establishing a stable community of monks in the Church of England for the first time since the Reformation.
Heraldry
In an 1820s engraving by Samuel William Reynolds (1773-1835), below a portrait of Thomas Starling Benson his arms are shown as Argent, on a chevron sable three cross crosslets or, which are arms born by the Bensons of Loftus Hill, surrounded on the dexter by the arms of his first two wives (Elizabeth and Hannah Newberry) and on the sinister by those of his third wife (Elizabeth Meux). In 1828-29, he was granted his own arms (illustrated above), which included a black chevron and gold cross crosslets from the earlier arms.
In 1875 Swansea antiquarian and civic leader, George Grant Francis, commissioned a new mayoral chain of office featuring the arms of the first forty mayors of Swansea. In his book Notes on a gold chain of office ..., he gives Starling Benson's arms as being those of his father, but the two cross crosslets are missing from the chevron.
Sources
- Ancestry.co.uk [subscription required]
- Bayliffe, Dorothy M., & Harding, Joan N.. Starling Benson of Swansea. Cowbridge; Bridgend : D. Brown & Sons, 1996. ISBN: 9781872808420.
- Foster, Joseph : Grantees of arms named in docquets and patents between the years 1687 and 1898, preserved in various manuscripts [vol.1], edited by W. Harry Rylands. London : 1916.
- Burke, Bernard, Sir (1814-1892). The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; Comprising a Registry of Armorial Bearings from the Earliest to the Present Time. London: 1884.
- Francis, George Grant (1814-1882). Notes on a Gold Chain of Office Presented to the Corporation of Swansea in ... 1875, and a Description of Its Design, Together with a List of the Gentlemen Who Have Filled the Office of Mayor, from 1835 to 1875, Etc. Swansea, 1876.
- The London Gazette, issue 16565, 21 January 1812.
- Wikipedia Society of St.John the Evangelist