William Gurney Benham
| William Gurney Benham | |
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| File:William Gurney Benham.png
Gurney Benham c. 1916
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| Born | February 16, 1859 Colchester, Essex, England |
| Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Colchester, Essex, England |
| Children | Hervey Benham |
Sir William Gurney Benham, JP, FSA, FRHistS (/ˈbɛnəm/; 16 February 1859,[1] in Colchester – 13 May 1944,[2] in Colchester[3]) was a newspaper editor, published author and three times Mayor of Colchester.
Gurney Benham was born on 16 February 1859 and educated at the Merchant Taylors' School until 1873,[4] and thereafter at Colchester Royal Grammar School, a school about which he has written, of whose old boys' society he was later President and which still has a building named after him.[3] Gurney Benham was the son of Edward Benham, a printer, and father to violet inez,gerald and cecil and from his second wife Maura, Edna and HerveyBenham, himself an author. His first job was as a journalist in Wiltshire from 1881 to 1884.[4]
He took over the family printing business and edited the Essex County Standard from 1884.[4] A "conscientious as well as an excellent scholar",[5][6] he is now mainly known through his many publications, many of which are transcriptions of official documents from mediaeval times, particularly those related to his home town of Colchester. He also compiled a number of books of quotations, leading a reviewer in the Journal of Education to comment after his death, "it is remarkable that one man — Sir William Gurney Benham — was able to collect and arrange some fifty thousand quotations and proverbs".[7] For ten years he was also editor of the Essex Review.[8]
In addition, Gurney Benham was mayor of Colchester three times, for the years 1892/93, 1908/09 and 1933/34,[9] in 1933 was appointed to the honour of High Steward of Colchester and was knighted in 1935 in recognition of his public service.[3] He remained editor of the Standard until 1943,[6] and was a director of the Colchester Gas Company for over forty years, being chairman until his resignation on grounds of ill health the day before his death on 13 May 1944.[2] Gurney Benham Close, a street in Colchester is named after him.
Publications
- Playing Cards: The History and Secrets of the Pack
- Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words (1924, reprinted 1929)
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- A Short History of Playing Cards
- Benham's New Book of Quotations
- The oath book; or, Red parchment book of Colchester
References
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External links
- The oath book; or, Red parchment book of Colchester on Archive.org (1907).
