John Benbow - Family and Early Years

Family and Early Years

Benbow was born the son of William and Martha Benbow. The astrologer John Partridge recorded the exact time and date of his birth as being at noon on 10 March 1653, and this is the date used by the National Museum of the Royal Navy, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and the local historical accounts of Joseph Nightingale published in 1818. A biography within an 1819 publication of The Gentleman's Magazine, however, records in a short biography entitled Life and Exploits of Admiral Benbow by D. Parkes that he was born in 1650, as does the 1861 Sea kings and naval heroes by John George Edgar. Edgar records that Benbow's father died when Benbow was very young, while Parkes' account describes his father as being in the service of the Army under Charles I and not dying until Benbow was in his teens. Encyclopædia Britannica writes that Benbow's father was in fact a tanner. Meanwhile, his uncle, Thomas, was executed by Charles I. Both Parkes and the National Museum of the Royal Navy concur that Benbow was born in Coton Hill in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, and Nightingale asserts that the death of both uncle and father, and the family's association with Charles I in the years following his execution, ensured that the "family were brought very low." Benbow's lack of possessions, Nightingale writes, turned him to a career at sea.