Imprints… Paper in mourning 10 Oct 2022 On 19 October 1827 Andrew Bent issued what must surely be one of the most curious newspapers ever printed in Australia—the famous ‘mourning’ issue of the Colonial Times. It was…
Timeline James Austin 11 Mar 20228 Mar 2022 Of all the friendships Andrew Bent formed in Hobart Town his bond with James Austin, an original Calcutta convict, ran especially deep. Their relationship appears to have been one of…
Timeline Bentfield part 2 11 Aug 202111 Aug 2021 On 19 July 1828 Andrew Bent—who had grown up in the slums of London, spent his entire working life as a printer, and knew next to nothing about farming—became the…
Timeline Bentfield part 1 3 Aug 20214 Aug 2021 One measure of Andrew Bent’s early success was the amount of real estate he accumulated. He owned several properties in Hobart Town and two small farms at Glenorchy, one granted…
Family… Benjamin Bent 12 Mar 202113 May 2022 Benjamin Bent, the middle of the three Bent brothers, arrived in Australia, like his two siblings, as a transported felon. He had his first encounter with the magistrates, and first…
Timeline George Clark 28 Apr 20207 Aug 2022 George Clark was Andrew Bent’s predecessor as Government Printer in Van Diemen's Land. His time as a printer in Hobart Town, from around 1810 to 1815, was relatively short and…
Timeline Last days 28 Jun 201928 Jun 2019 DIED ... At the Benevolent Asylum, on the 26th instant, Mr. Andrew Bent, printer, aged 55 years, formerly of Van Diemen's Land. (Sydney Morning Herald 28 Aug. 1851) How had…
Timeline Apprenticeship 17 Dec 201817 Dec 2018 How Andrew Bent became so skilled at the printing craft has long remained a mystery. In a memoir of Bent published in the Mercury in 1881 James Erskine Calder…
Timeline Philip Street 26 Oct 201826 Oct 2018 Philip Street was convicted alongside Andrew Bent at the Old Bailey on 1 November 1810. Philip's family background helps to explain why he was granted a full pardon for their…
Timeline Conviction, 1810 5 Oct 20185 Nov 2018 Old Bailey, London Thursday 1 November 1810 Just after 8am on Thursday 1 November 1810, with a jury of 12 Londoners duly sworn, the stage was set for the trial…