BookRix

James Theodore Bent was the son of James Bent of Baildon House, near Bradford, Yorkshire, where he was born. He was educated at Repton School and Wadham College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1875. In 1877 he married Mabel, daughter of R. W. Hall-Dare of Newtownbarry, Co. Wexford, and she became his companion in all his travels. He went abroad every year and became thoroughly acquainted with Italy and Greece. In 1879 he published a book on the republic of San Marino, entitled A Freak of Freedom, and was made a citizen of San Marino; in the following year appeared Genoa: How the Republic Rose and Fell, and in 188x a Life of Giuseppe Garibaldi. He spent considerable time in the Aegean archipelago, of which he wrote in The Cyclades: or Life among the Insular Greeks (1885).