Henry Boswell Bennett

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Lt. Henry Boswell Bennett of the 45th Regiment of Foot (Sherwood Foresters), on May 31, 1838 he became the first officer to die in the service of Queen Victoria.

Bennett was a short slender man of Irish parentage, was buried in the Cathedral Precincts on Saturday 2 June with full military honours and in the presence of six thousand spectators. In view of the special circumstances the Cathedral Chapter waived the normal ban on the firing of guns in the precincts, and three volleys were fired over the grave at the end of the funeral service. Later a tablet which can still be seen was affixed to the north wall of the Cathedral nave in memory of Lt. Bennett. It bears the following inscription.

Within the cloisters of this Cathedral are desposited the remains of HENRY BOSWELL BENNETT (Lieutenant in the 45th Regiment) who fell in the strict and manly discharge of his duties, in Bossenden Wood, in the Ville of Dunkirk, on the 31st of May 1838. Aged 29 years.

Bossenden Wood, is situated about 3.5 miles northwest of Canterbury, is just one of many small forests that pepper the Kent landscape. The last armed insurrection staged on English soil, headed by rebel leader John Nichols Thom alias 'Mad Tom'