John Edmund Bentley
| Full name | John Edmund Bentley | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | 1847 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Calver Near Baslow | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date of death | 12 December 1913 (aged 65–66) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of death | West Hampstead | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| School | Merchant Taylors School | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Position(s) | Halfback | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Amateur team(s) | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Points) |
| National team(s) | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Points) |
| 1871-72 | England | 2 | () |
John Edmund Bentley (1847–12 December 1913) was an English sportsman who played in the first international rugby football match in 1871, representing England as a halfback.
John Edmund Bentley was born in Calver, Derbyshire, the second son of Alfred Crompton, an industrialist and Charlotte Selina Wilson. Alfred Compton Bentley (12 January 1812 - 1857) was the son of John Bentley and Martha Chetham, and younger brother to the wealthy John Wansey Nathaniel Bentley. He had married Charlotte Selina Wilson on 28 April 1842. He became an industrialist and at the time of John's birth had moved his family to Calver, Derbyshire, where was managing a cotton spinning business at Calver Mills, near Bakewell, along with Robert Philips Greg.
John attended Merchant Taylors School in Middlesex, where the sport of rugby was in its infancy. After leaving school he stayed in London and joined the civil service. Some time after his father's death in 1857 the family moved to London and by 1861 were resident in the London parish of Kensington St Mary Abbott. Here John resided with his mother, his older sister Charlotte, older brother Alfred, and younger siblings, Eleanor, Walter and Arthur. The family were still living in Kensington in 1871
Bentley, having played at school, did not play for the school's well known old boys side, Old Merchant Taylors, because his playing years pre-dated its formation. Old boys from the school had been instrumental in the founding of Wasps, but that was an open club based in north London and Bentley was based south of the river Thames. His club of choice was the once famous Gipsies Football Club, based in Peckham, that would afterwards become a founding member of the Rugby Football Union in 1871. His performances for the Gipsies produced an invitation to represent England in the first ever international in 1871 at Raeburn Place in Scotland. England were to lose this encounter, but Bentley was also involved in the return match the following year at The Oval where England were the victors. Arthur Guillemard of the Chislehurst-based West Kent Football Club, who also played in those first two international games, said of Bentley that he was very fast and much helped by his weight and strength, "which on one occasion at Chislehurst enabled him to run-in carrying two of his opponents on his back as if they were rag dolls",
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