James Bentham

James Bentham (10 March 1709? – 17 November 1794) was an English clergyman, antiquarian and historian of Ely Cathedral.

Bentham was a son of the Rev. Samuel Bentham (c.1681–1733), registrar of Ely Cathedral and vicar of Witchford near Ely, and his wife, Philippa Willen (c.1681–1747). The Benthams were a clerical family, and James was the sixth priest in a continuous descent from Thomas Bentham (1513/14–1579), Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. His elder brother, Edward (1707–1776) became a distinguished theologian and natural philosopher, and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. The family were distant cousins of the philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832).

From Ely Grammar School, James was admitted 26 March 1727 to Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he graduated B.A. in 1730, and M.A. in 1738. In 1733 he was presented to the vicarage of Stapleford in Cambridgeshire, which he resigned in 1737, when he was made a minor canon of Ely.

In 1767 Bentham was presented by Bishop Matthias Mawson to the vicarage of Wymondham in Norfolk, and upon his resignation of that living in the following year to the rectory of Feltwell St Nicholas in the same county. This preferment he held till 1774, when Bishop Edmund Keene presented him to the rectory of Northwold, which, after five years' tenure, he gave up for a prebendal stall in Ely Cathedral. To this was added in 1783, on the presentation of the Rev. Edward Guellaume, the rectory of Bowbrick Hill, Buckinghamshire.

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