Mary Bennett (academic)

For the first official lighthouse keeper in New Zealand, see Mary Bennett (lighthouse keeper).

Mary Letitia Somerville Bennett (9 January 1913 – 1 November 2005) was a British academic, best known for her tenure as Principal of St Hilda's College, Oxford between 1965 and 1980.

Born Mary Letitia Somerville Fisher, she was the daughter of historian H. A. L. Fisher and Lettice Fisher, the founder of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child. She was educated at Oxford High School. She obtained her first degree (in Classics) from Somerville College, Oxford, and then studied abroad, researching the grain supply of ancient Rome. During the Second World War she worked for the British Ministry of Information and for the BBC, and after the war went into the Colonial Office with responsibility at various times for Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus. In 1955, she married senior civil servant John Sloman Bennett, who would be happy to take a back seat when she took over as Principal of St Hilda's from Kathleen Major.

In retirement, she wrote up her researches into family history. St Hilda's commissioned Jean Cooke to paint a portrait of its principal.

Publications

• The Ilberts in India, 1882–1886: an Imperial Miniature. London: British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia. 1995.
• Who was Dr Jackson? Two Calcutta Families, 1830–1855. London: British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia. 2002. ISBN 978-0-907799-78-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Vogeler, Martha S. (11 July 2014). "Bennett, Mary. Who Was Dr Jackson? Two Calcutta Families, 1830–1855". Albion (Review). 36 (2): 388–389. doi:10.2307/4054289. JSTOR 4054289. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Mary Bennett: an Autobiography. Oxford: St Hilda's College. 2006.

Further reading

• Brown, Hilda (19 November 2005). "Mary Bennett". The Independent. Retrieved 23 March 2016.