{{Short description|British diplomat (1855–1937)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} thumb|Bennett photographed by Lafayette in 1932.
'''Sir Courtenay Walter Bennett''' {{post-nominals|CIE}} (11 May 1855 – 17 December 1937) was a British diplomat.<ref name="times">{{cite news |title= Obituary: Sir Courtenay Bennett |work=The Times |date= 17 December 1937|page=18 }}</ref>
Bennett was born in Plymouth, Devon, the son of John Nicholas Bennett and Emily Gribble Prance. He began his career in the India Office. He subsequently moved to Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service, and held postings in Spain, Guatemala, Rio Grande do Sul and Réunion.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=26044|date=22 April 1890|page=2338}}</ref> He was made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire on 21 June 1900.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=11211|date=3 July 1900|page=650|city=e}}</ref> He served as the British Consul-General in San Francisco between 1901 and 1907. He then served as Consul-General in New York between 1907 and his retirement in 1915.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=12556|date=18 April 1913|page=436|city=e}}</ref> He was made a knight bachelor in 1914.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=28808|date=3 March 1914|page=1728}}</ref> In retirement he lived in Devon.<ref>{{cite news |date=26 June 1915 |title=Consul-General at New York Resigns |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=22&dat=19150626&id=lB8BAAAAIBAJ&pg=2319,4404673&hl=en |newspaper=The Toronto World |location=Toronto |access-date=25 July 2016 }}</ref>
Bennett was serving in the British diplomatic mission to the US during the first year of the First World War, and was engaged in early attempts to end American neutrality under the British ambassador, Cecil Spring Rice.<ref>Stephen Hartley, Licínia Simão, [https://books.google.com/books?id=DbSuCwAAQBAJ&q=The+Irish+Question+as+a+Problem+in+British+Foreign+Policy,+1914%E2%80%9318 ''The Irish Question as a Problem in British Foreign Policy, 1914–18''] (Springer, 1987), p.45 (Retrieved 25 July 2016).</ref>
He died at his home in Postbridge, Dartmoor, aged 82.<ref name="times"/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{commons category-inline}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bennett, Courtenay}} Category:1855 births Category:1937 deaths Category:People from Plymouth, Devon Category:India Office people Category:Members of HM Diplomatic Service Category:Consuls-general for the United Kingdom in the United States Category:Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire Category:Knights Bachelor
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