MISS ETHELDRED BENETT (1775-1845): HER CORRESPONDENCE 27 
friends at the end of our road, being of course 
previously appraised of the day of their coming. 
Many of her specimens are important since they 
were among the first to be illustrated and described, 
while a few are unique through their scarcity or 
special preservation.’ Some of these were donated to 
various British museums and organisations, others 
were sent to the Sowerbys, but her main collection 
is now in the Academy of Natural Sciences in 
Philadelphia, after being purchased in the late 
1840s. In recent years, both Sarah Nash (1990) in 
this journal, and Hugh Torrens with numerous 
American colleagues (1989, 2000), have discussed 
her fossil collection, the former providing a map of 
Wiltshire localities and the latter detailing its 
‘rediscovery’ in Philadelphia. It is also apparent 
from her correspondence that she collected shells, 
and was equally familiar with the literature on 
conchology. Writing to Mantell on 17 May 1817 
Miss Benett confessed that she had been so busy 
with her shells that she had not been able to pay any 
attention to his fossils. In another to J. De Carle 
Sowerby on 10 September 1825 she reported: 
I have lately been arranging my British Shells. . .I 
have discovered a quantity of fresh-water shells in 
this village, which I had no idea we possessed until 
now. The species which I have met with are: Helix 
palustris, planorbis, spirorbis and vortex — the specimens 
tolerably plentiful; Helix alba, contorta and hispida — 
very scarce; a few Bulla fontanalis; H. stagnalis 
plentiful in a village near us . . . Helix annularis 1s also 
found with H. stagnalis. 
The rest of that page and all the last were devoted to 
other shells that she could not identify and ends, ‘I 
have though more of the subject than of the writing 
I see in this letter’. 
Several of the species listed would appear to be 
new records for this square ST94 under the national 
mapping scheme.” Another letter (23 October 
1826) to the shell dealer G.B. Sowerby (the Ist) in 
response to an offer he made at the time he 
published The Genera of Shells, to sell representative 
lots of these to collectors at £5 each, gives some idea 
of her gradual decline: 
I am very sorry that your letter of the 2nd of 
September should have remained so _ long 
unanswered, but owing to your omitting Norton on 
the direction it was sometime before it reached me; 
and I have long been such an Invalid that writing 
many letters has been an exertion more than I was 
equal to. I believe you are not aware that I remained 
in London till nearly the end of August. I was 
detained the last two months by severe illness which 
has left me so low in purse, as well as in health, that I 
regret to say that I cannot with prudence become a 
subscriber to your proposed scheme, although ten 
pounds worth of shells would have been a brilliant 
addition to my collection. I am the more sorry that 
the success of your plan is so necessary as the little 
assistance I might have afforded you is so 
inconvenient to me just now. I hope you have met 
with many others who are both able and willing to 
assist you in your plan. 
Fortunately, much of her correspondence with 
Mantell has survived and is preserved in the 
Alexander Turnbull Library, in Wellington, New 
Zealand. A few other letters to the Sowerbys, and 
several to S.P. Woodward, the Norfolk naturalist 
with whom she exchanged specimens, are held by 
institutions in the U.K. 
Examination of this material has provided 
further background to her collecting methods and 
relationships with her other contemporaries 
(Cleevely 1998a, 1998b). These letters reveal that 
her practical knowledge of geological formations 
and their fossils enabled her to participate in 
resolving problems of correlation between differing 
sedimentary rock-types. This experience also 
ensured that she was not deceived on the source of 
the fossils that were acquired. The letters also 
contain references to other facets of her life, social 
background and family incidents, all of which 
colour existing accounts of her life and reflect the 
history and attitudes of that period. 
Family matters and illnesses often prevented 
Miss Benett from pursuing her collecting and 
forced her to give up geology for long periods. She 
explained this as being the cause of a long lapse in 
her correspondence with Mantell on 12 April 1825, 
and the vexation and annoyance at being deprived 
of her great amusement in pursuing the subject. As 
evidence she mentioned: 
I need only inform you that with my house full of 
fossils in confusion, a fine set of cabinets which I 
purchased last year still remains empty, and that 
having had Professor Buckland’s Book from the 
moment it was published, I was forced to 
acknowledge to him the other day, that I had not yet 
read it!”!! 
In 1818, her brother John Benett (1773-1852), 
who lived at Pythouse near Tisbury, contested an 
election for Wiltshire against the current MP Mr. 
