▶Date of birth:  6 May 1799        Place of birth: (not known)

▶Father:  Ralph Benson     Mother: Barbara Lewin

▶Spouse(s):  Amelia St George Browne Dyer    Date(s) of marriage:   28 August 1827    Place(s) of marriage: St Mary’s, Bryanston Square, London

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Anglican)

▶Lifestory: Ralph Lewin Benson retired to Cheltenham, but did not hold a clerical position in the town. He was born in 1799, the son of Ralph Benson MP, of Liverpool, and his wife Barbara (née Lewin, also Lewen), of Ireland. Benson matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1819, BA 1823, MA 1825. In 1823 he was licensed Curate of Easthope, and he was instituted Rector of Easthope, Shropshire in 1825 (he resigned from the post in 1831), and also served as Chaplain to the Duke of Sussex. In 1828 he married Amelia St George Browne, only child of John Dyer, of the Honourable East India Company and granddaughter of Lieutenant-General Sir George Sackville Browne KCB; they had two surviving sons.

Benson was recorded by the Cheltenham Annuaire as living at 12 Pittville Lawn (now 61 Pittville Lawn), Cheltenham between 1844 and 1849, but without cure of souls; his house was burgled in 1846, and thieves made off with some articles from the butler’s pantry. He died at his Pittville residence in 1849, at the age of fifty.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Southampton       Moved from Pittville to: (deceased)

▶Date of death:  24 August 1849      Place of death: Cheltenham

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:        ID: 3792

Contributor(s): John Simpson/Alan Munden