Samuel Bennett

Samuel Bennett (28 March 1815 – 2 June 1878) was a journalist and newspaper owner in colonial Australia.

Bennett was born in Cornwall, England. He went to Australia in 1841, having been engaged by Messrs. Stevens & Stokes, of the Sydney Morning Herald, to superintend the typographical department of that paper. Having held this post for seventeen years, Mr. Bennett, in 1859, purchased the Empire newspaper which had been started by Henry Parkes nine years previously. Messrs. Hanson & Bennett conducted the Empire for several years as a daily and weekly journal, Mr. Bennett becoming sole proprietor some time before it ceased publication.

Bennett also started in 1867 The Evening News, and in 1870 The Australian Town and Country Journal, a weekly newspaper, both of which achieved phenomenal success. Mr. Bennett was the author of "The History of Australian Discovery and Colonisation," which is recognised as a standard work of reference.

Bennett died at his residence, Mundarrah Towers, Little Coogee, Sydney, New South Wales, on 2 June 1878 of tetanus. Bennett had married Eliza née Sellers of Bristol; they had seven children together. Bennett was survived by three sons (all 3 — Alfred b.1851, Frank b.1853 and Christopher b.1857 — joined their father and continued his newspaper business, his Will providing for his eldest surviving son to be the managing proprietor, they succeeded each other in birth order) and a daughter, Rose, also a proprietor, who married Sir John Henniker Heaton, 1st Baronet.