Timeline – ANDREW BENT: Father of the Free Press in Australia

Andrew Bent Junior

7 Jan 201916 Jan 2019

Last November the colonial printer, Andrew Bent, was celebrated at the Australian Media Hall of Fame dinner as ‘Australia’s first fighter for press freedom’, having wrested control of the Hobart…

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…

Hall of Fame, 2018

30 Nov 201830 Nov 2018

Speaking at the Legends of Australian Journalism dinner held in Melbourne on 16 November 2018, Michael Smith situated the contemporary inductees into the Australian Media Hall of Fame within the…

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…

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…

Baptism, 1791

22 Jul 201812 Oct 2018

24 October 1791 St Giles-on-the-Fields, London We have established that Andrew Bent was baptised in the church of St Giles-in-the-Fields, London on 24 October 1791 as the son of Andrew…