Sir Thomas Jewell Bennett (16 May 1852 in

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– 16 January 1925 in Hans Place, London) was a British journalist and Conservative Party politician. He is most notable as an editor of ''

The Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...

'', as well as its principal proprietor. He was also the member of parliament (MP) for the

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constituency (in Kent, England) from 1918 to 1923. Bennett was the son of John Thomas Jewell who was a first cousin of the English composer William Sterndale Bennett. He took up the career of

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

and became assistant editor of the ''

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'' in

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, after which he was a leader writer at ''The Standard''. In 1884, he went to

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, where for eight years he was an associate editor of the '' Bombay Gazette''. He was later both editor and principal proprietor of the ''

Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...

'' which he modernised and expanded until it later came to be regarded as the leading English language newspaper in Asia. When he left India in 1901, 3,000 Guzerat farmers presented him with an address thanking him for their support during the famines they suffered in the late 1890s. In 1902, he was awarded the silver medal of the

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for an article on the British in the

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and became a

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of the

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. He was created a Companion of the

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(CIE) in the 1903 Durbar Honours. He contested the

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constituency unsuccessfully in 1910 before being elected for

in 1918 as a Unionist. He was an active member of the Joint Select Committee on India in 1919, which framed the Government of India Bill of that year to expand participation of Indians in the Indian government, and in a 1920 Commons speech on the 1919 unrest in India and the Amritsar massacre of unarmed civilians he strongly defended Indian rights. He also represented the

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in the National Assembly of the

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. Bennett was knighted in 1921 for public services. Elena Brooke-Jones, his second wife, whom he married in 1917, worked actively for local causes in Kent until her death in 1967. Bennett's obituary in ''The Times'' in 1925 noted his steadfast work for Indian advancement.

References

Electronic British Library JournalDNB entry for Thomas Jewell Bennett

External links

Britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk. Accessed 30 November 2022. 1852 births 1925 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1918–1922 UK MPs 1922–1923 People from Wisbech British newspaper publishers (people) English male journalists Knights Bachelor Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire {{England-Conservative-UK-MP-1850s-stub