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Charles Peto Bennett

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Charles Peto Bennett, 1905 photograph

Charles Peto Bennett (1856–1940) was an English timber merchant and company director of Lombard Street, London. He was a business partner of Alfred Baldwin Raper, and associate of Marentius Thams of Trondheim.[1]

Life

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Charles Peto Bennett was son and nephew of merchants in mahogany;[2] his father had warehouses on the River Thames.[3] He set up in business in Lombard Street in 1877.[2] A timber import partnership with Lars August Brolin was dissolved in 1890.[4] Bennett was also involved in the 1890 bankruptcy of the timber merchant Arthur Henry Lilley, trading as Lilley, Bennett & Co. from 27 Lombard Street, in debt to Brolin, Bennett & Co.[5][6]

Boxboard

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In 1887 Bennett became a director of Myers Patent Box, a company set up to automate production of wooden boxes and barrels, which took over the going concern at the Invicta Works, Bow Common of the cork merchants L. Lumley & Co.[7][8] A 1916 advertisement for C. Peto Bennett of London and Liverpool offered "Box Shooks for Shell Cases, Ammunition, Ration, Bacon, Biscuit, Rum, Jam, Petroleum, Clothing, Tea, and all other Boxes."[9] By 1919 they had a reputation as clearly the largest British importer of box shooks (i.e. slats), for the manufacture of wooden boxes.[10]

C. Peto Bennett was UK agent for boxes from Färjenäs Aktiebolag (sv:Färjenäs Snickerifabrik) of Gothenburg.[11][12] The company also represented S. A. Woods Machine Co. of Boston.[13][14]

Borneo

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Around 1890 Bennett visited British North Borneo, and set up there North Borneo Rubber Estates, Ltd., which he ran for many years.[2] E. Peto Bennett of 27 Lombard Street was in 1891 handling a cargo of Borneo hardwoods.[15]

Western Australia

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Bennett became a director on the 1897 launch of Jarrahdale Jarrah Forests & Railways Ltd.[16] It went into voluntary liquidation in 1901, Bennett being one of the liquidators.[17] Eight Jarrahdale timber companies were in 1902 consolidated into Millars Karri and Jarrah Forests Limited of Western Australia.[18] Bennett was a director of Millars, and in 1914 and 1924 a director of Millars Timber & Trading Co., a successor company.[19][20][21][22] He had visited Western Australia in 1906 with Leama Robert Davies of London, another director of Millars and son of Maurice Coleman Davies, a founder of the timber industry there. In an interview for The West Australian, Bennett commented on the economics of jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata), used for railway sleepers in India, and karri (Eucalyptus diversicolor).[23][24][21]

Other interests

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Other directorships (1914) held by Bennett were in Argentine Hardwoods & Lands Co. Ltd., Bode Rubber Estates Ltd., and Dominica Forests & Sawmills, Ltd.[25] In 1921 Alfred Baldwin Raper was a partner in C. Peto Bennett, and a director of Dominica Forests & Sawmills.[26] The partnership was dissolved in 1929.[27]

In 1927 Bennett also was a director of Tuaran Rubber Estates, Ltd.[28] That year The Californian Lumber Merchant reported on the month-long visit Bennett made to the Philippines, with honorary consul Niels Christian Gude. Millars Timber & Trading Co. had two large subsidiaries in Manila.[29]

Collector

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By 1908, Bennett owned the Southern Cross pearl formation, of nine pearls, which was shown at the Franco-British Exhibition.[30] It was on display again at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924.[31][32]

Bennett bought pictures by Adriaen van de Velde, Paulus Potter and Frans van Mieris the Elder in or shortly after 1928.[33][34][35]

Family

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Bennett married Kristine Elisabeth Gudde (1886–1982) from Trondheim, known as "Kiss", when she was 17.[36] They had two sons.

The elder son Alfred Edwin Peto Bennett (1905–1996) was born in Cobham, Surrey. He married in 1935 Helle Huitfeldt, co-owner of the Norwegian media business Schibsted.[37] As a great-granddaughter of Christian Schibsted, she held one-sixth of the company.[38]

The second son (Charles) Peto Bennett (1906–1978) was born in Perth, Western Australia. His roles in the RAF and the military mission to Norway in 1945 were recognised by the awards of the Order of the British Empire and the King Haakon VII Freedom Cross.[39] His daughter Anne Christine married in 1962 Sir Richard Baker Wilbraham, 8th Baronet.[40]

Bennett's great-granddaughter Tilly (Matilde) Culme-Seymour wrote a family memoir Island Summers (2013) about Småholmene , a small island in the Skaggerak.[41]

Notes

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  1. ^ "Charles Peto Bennett". digitaltmuseum.no.
  2. ^ a b c "Death of a North Borneo timber pioneer". www.dailyexpress.com.my. 2 March 1940.
  3. ^ Bomann-Larsen, Tor (31 August 2011). Roald Amundsen. The History Press. p. 134. ISBN 978-0-7524-6682-8.
  4. ^ "No. 26109". The London Gazette. 25 November 1890. p. 6632.
  5. ^ "No. 26049". The London Gazette. 9 May 1890. p. 2742.
  6. ^ Timber and Wood-working Machinery. Middlesex Publishing Company. 1890. p. 339.
  7. ^ The Engineer. Morgan-Grampian. 1887. p. 101.
  8. ^ Morgan's British Trade Journal and Export Price Current. 1882. p. 39.
  9. ^ Anglo-Swedish trade journal : journal. Vol. VIII. London: Swedish Chamber of Commerce. 1916. p. 54.
  10. ^ Canada Lumberman and Woodworker. Vol. 39. H.C. Maclean. 1919. p. 38.
  11. ^ The Timber trades journal list of shipping marks on timber, embracing sawn and planed wood, joinery, and other hard and soft woods, exported from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, Canada, the United States, etc. 1920. p. xv.
  12. ^ Handbook of the Northern Wood Industries; Timber, Wood-Pulp, Paper. Sweden, Norway, Finland. AB Svensk trävarutidning. 1934. p. 105.
  13. ^ "S. A. Woods Machine Co. - History VintageMachinery.org". vintagemachinery.org.
  14. ^ The Timberman. M. Freeman Publications. 1927. p. 93.
  15. ^ Timber and Wood-working Machinery. Middlesex Publishing Company. 1891. p. 507.
  16. ^ Timber and Wood-working Machinery. Middlesex Publishing Company. 1897. p. 202.
  17. ^ "No. 27561". The London Gazette. 5 June 1903. p. 3600.
  18. ^ "A History of Jarrahdale Western Australia". Jarrahdale Heritage Society.
  19. ^ "1908 Stock Exchange Year-Book: Miscellaneous Companies: M - Graces Guide". www.gracesguide.co.uk.
  20. ^ "1914 Who's Who in Business: Company M - Graces Guide". www.gracesguide.co.uk.
  21. ^ a b "1922 Who's Who In Engineering: Company M - Graces Guide". www.gracesguide.co.uk.
  22. ^ "Millars Timber and Trading Co - Graces Guide". www.gracesguide.co.uk.
  23. ^ "The Timber Industry". West Australian. 24 August 1906. p. 5.
  24. ^ "Obituary - Maurice Coleman Davies - Obituaries Australia". oa.anu.edu.au.
  25. ^ The Directory of Directors for 1914: A List of the Directors of the Joint Stock Companies of the United Kingdom and the Companies with which They are Concerned, with Such Other Particulars as are Considered to be of Use and Interest. Thomas Skinner & Company. 1914. p. 84.
  26. ^ Mair, Robert Henry (1921). Debrett's House of Commons, and the Judicial Bench. p. 129.
  27. ^ "No. 33563". The London Gazette. 24 December 1929. pp. 8418–8419.
  28. ^ The Directory of Directors for 1927, A List of the Directors of the Joint Stock Companies of the United Kingdom and the Companies with which They are Concerned, with Such Other Particulars as are Considered to be of Use and Interest. Thomas Skinner & Company. 1927. p. 120.
  29. ^ "The California Lumber Merchant: C. P. Bennett and N. C. Gude Nationally Known Lumbermen Visit Coast". issuu.com. 15 July 1927. p. 37.
  30. ^ "FRANCO-BRITISH EXHIBITION. WESTERN AUSTRALIAN AWARDS". Western Mail. 14 November 1908. p. 18.
  31. ^ "British Empire Exhibition Australian Pavilion. Fisheries stand. Between the two attendants is the case containing the 'Southern Cross' pearl". slwa.wa.gov.au. 1924.
  32. ^ The Gemmologist. 1933. p. 114.
  33. ^ "Adriaen van de Velde, View from the Dunes out to Sea". christies.com.
  34. ^ "Paulus Potter, Landscape with cattle and a woman cleaning a bucket by a stream" (PDF). londonartweek.co.uk.
  35. ^ "Fr, ans van Mieris the ElderThe Drummer Boy" (PDF). londonartweek.co.uk.
  36. ^ "Kristine Elisabeth "Kiss" Bennett". /amundsen.mia.no.
  37. ^ "Alfred Edwin Peto Bennett". amundsen.mia.no.
  38. ^ Gjernes, Knut (13 September 2002). "Dynastiet på norsk". www.dn.no.
  39. ^ "Charles Peto Bennett: Younger son of Kristine Elisabeth Bennett". amundsen.mia.no.
  40. ^ "Baker Wilbraham, Sir Richard". Who's Who. A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  41. ^ House, Christian (13 July 2013). "Tilly Culme-Seymour interview on her new memoir Island Summers". The Independent.
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