Etheldred Benett (22 July 1776 – 11 January 1845) was an early English geologist, the eldest daughter of Thomas Benett (1729–1797) of Wiltshire and Catherine née Darell (d. 1790); her brother, John (1773–1852), was a member of Parliament for Wiltshire and later South Wiltshire from 1819 to 1852. Independently well-off, she never married and devoted herself to geology which her relative, the botanist Aylmer Bourke Lambert, encouraged.[1]
From 1802 she resided at Norton House in Norton Bavant, near Warminster, in Wiltshire, and from at least 1809 until her death devoted herself to collecting and studying the fossils of her native county. Her speciality was in the Middle Cretaceous Upper Greenland in the Vale of Wardour and she was well known for her collection. She wrote and privately published a monograph, A Catalogue of the Organic Remains of the County of Wiltshire (1831) which was widely distributed. Most of her fossil collection is currently housed at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia after purchase by Thomas Bellerby Wilson though small parts are in many British museums, in particular Leeds City Museum and possibly even in St. Petersburgh; it contains many type specimens and some of the first fossils found (and recognized though shortly after her death) with the soft tissues preserved.[2]
She corresponded extensively with fellow geologists such as George Bellas Greenough, first president of the Geological Society, Gideon Mantell, William Buckland, and Samuel Woodward. In addition to her own collection she made many donations to other collections such as the British Museum. In 1836 she was made a member of the Imperial Natural History Society of Moscow though it is suspected they didn't realize she was female.
A catalogue of the organic remains of the county of Wiltshire, 1831.
A brief enquiry into the antiquity, honour and estate of the name and family of Wake, 1833 (written by her great grandfather William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, but prepared for publication and footnoted by Etheldred Benett)
Spamer, Earle E.; Bogan, Arthur E.; Torrens, Hugh S. (1989). "Recovery of the Etheldred Benett Collection of fossils mostly from Jurassic-Cretaceous strata of Wiltshire, England, analysis of the taxonomic nomenclature of Benett (1831), and notes and figures of type specimens contained in the collection". Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 141. pp. 115-180. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4064955. Retrieved 2010-10-09.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.