Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Bentley, Robert
BENTLEY, ROBERT (1821–1893), botanist, was born at Hitchin, Hertfordshire, on 25 March 1821. He was apprenticed to William Maddock, a druggist at Tunbridge Wells, where he began the study of botany. He then became assistant to Messrs. Bell & Co. in Oxford Street, and, on the establishment of the Pharmaceutical Society, became one of the first associates. He attended the lectures of Anthony Todd Thomson [q. v.] on botany and materia medica, and gained the first prize for botany awarded by the new society. Having matriculated in the university of London, Bentley entered the King's College medical school, and qualified as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1847. He became a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1849. He soon after was appointed lecturer on botany at the London Hospital medical school, and then professor of botany at the London Institution and at King's College, and professor of botany and materia medica to the Pharmaceutical Society. For ten years he edited the 'Pharmaceutical Journal,' in which all the original papers with which he is credited in the Royal Society's 'Catalogue of Scientific Papers' (i. 282, ix. 192) were published. He acted as president of the Pharmaceutical Conference at Nottingham in 1866 and at Dundee in 1867, and was for many years chairman of the garden committee of the Royal Botanical Society, giving an annual course of lectures to the fellows. On his resignation of his professorship to the Pharmaceutical Society in 1887, Bentley was elected emeritus professor. He also took an active part in the affairs of the English Church Union, serving for some years on the council. Bentley died at his home in Warwick Road, Kensington, on 24 Dec. 1893, and was buried at Kensal Green cemetery. In 1885 he edited the 'British Pharmacopoeia' jointly with Professors Redwood and Attfield. His chief works are: 1. 'Manual of Botany,' 1861, 8vo; 4th edit. 1881; a text-book of considerable pharmaceutical value, which has since been rewritten by the author's successor. Professor Green. 2. 'Characters, Properties, and Uses of Eucalyptus,' 1874, 8vo. 3. ' Botany,' 1875, 8vo; one of the 'Manuals of Elementary Science' issued by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 4. 'Medicinal Plants,' 1875-80, 8vo; written in conjunction with Henry Trimen [q. v.], with excellent coloured plates by D. Blair.
[Pharmaceutical Journal, 1893-4, p. 559; Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 1893-4, p. 28.]