Henry Bennett was born in
Codford, Wiltshire, to farmer John Bennett and his wife, Caroline Bennett. Henry was a cattle and wheat farmer at Manor Farm,
Stapleford, Wiltshire in the mid-1800s. He married Emma Rebbeck in July 1852, and they had eight children. Bennett decided that the future was not in cattle and wheat, but a new source of income was going to be necessary, and that would be roses. In 1865, he bought his first roses and planted them on the farm, to propagate for sale. His knowledge of cattle breeding suggested to him that he might be able to make great advances in rose cultivation by applying the same principles to rose breeding – that of using known parents, selected for the qualities desired in the progeny. His first efforts were unsuccessful, so from 1870 to 1872 he visited successful rose hybridizers in France. In France, Bennett was surprised to find that the masters of rose hybridisation did not practice deliberate hybridisation through controlled
pollination, but rather raised the seeds resulting from natural pollination, which meant that while the seed parent might be known, the
pollen parent never was. He also saw that the cool and damp English climate did not provide enough summer heat to ripen rose hips. On returning home he built a heated
glass house, where he kept his parent rose plants in pots. This system allowed him to work nearly year-round with Tea roses, and gave him a much longer bloom season with the Hybrid Perpetuals. Where other British rose hybridizers worked primarily in summer, Bennett's system allowed him to begin cross-pollination in March. While developing his own roses, he introduced and sold roses acquired from other breeders. Emma Bennett, an avid hunter, died in 1875 from a horse-riding accident. The two surviving daughters, Maria and Mary, then 16 and 11, took over running the household. Bennett moved operations in 1880 from Stapleford to
Shepperton in Middlesex. From then on, he was no longer a farmer, but a rose hybridizer who listed his occupation as florist. He travelled to the United States in 1888 to study rose growing there. He introduced some of his roses in that country before introducing them in the UK. Bennett died from
cirrhosis of the liver in 1890. His youngest son Edmund introduced the rose 'Captain Hayward' posthumously, in 1893. ==Contributions==