Clark Bentom Explained
Clark Bentom was an English missionary and surgeon, who was a missionary in Canada at Quebec City, Quebec, from 1800 to 1805.[1] [2]
As a young man, Bentom was a footman to William Wilberforce. He was accepted into the London Missionary Society in 1798. In that year, he sailed for Tahiti with other missionaries on the Duff, but the ship was captured by French privateers.[3] [4] [5] The crew and missionaries were released and arrived back in London in 1799.[6]
Along with another missionary from that voyage, Bentom then sailed for Canada. He reached Quebec on 1 June 1800. In Canada, Bentom had a congregation and conducted a Presbyterian-style ministry with varied success. He also occasionally practised surgery. He was not accepted by the established clergy in the city and was eventually jailed for performing baptisms, marriages and burials without authorization for civil registers.[7] His time in Quebec was notable in advancing the rights of non-Catholics and non-Anglicans to worship in freedom and be protected by law.
In 1805, he returned to England. He petitioned the House of Commons concerning the actions taken against him by the colonial authorities, but the outcome is not recorded.[8] Nor did he receive support from the London Missionary Society.
Bentom left the society, and enlisted in the Royal Navy as a ship's surgeon.
He is thought to have died in Jamaica, circa 1820.
Correspondence and other documents by Bentom are held in the Council of World Missions Archive, at the library of SOAS University of London.[9]
See also
Notes and References
- Book: Brown, John. The colonial missions of Congregationalism : the story of seventy years. Published for the Colonial Missionary Society by the Congregational Union of England & Wales. 1908. London. 9.
- Web site: Biography – BENTOM, CLARK – Volume V (1801-1820) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography. 2021-12-02. www.biographi.ca.
- Book: GREGORY (Missionary), William . A visible display of Divine Providence; or the Journal of a captured missionary, designated to the Southern Pacific Ocean ... in the years 1798 and 1799. With extracts from the Journals of P. Levesque, J. Hill, J. Jones, J. Levesque, etc . 1800 . en.
- Book: Ellis, William . The History of the London Missionary Society: Comprising an Account of the Origin of the Society; Biographical Notices of Some of Its Founders and Missionaries; with a Record of Its Progress at Home and Its Operations Abroad; Compiled from Original Doxuments in the Possession of the Society . 1844 . Snow . en.
- Book: Wilson, William . First [and Second] Missionary Voyage[s] to the South-Sea: Performed in the Years 1796, 1797 and 1798 in the Ship Duff, Commanded of the Missionary Society ]. 1805 . J. Cundee . en.
- Book: Kirk, Robert Wm . Paradise past : the transformation of the South Pacific, 1520-1920 . 2012 . McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers . 978-0-7864-9298-5 . Jefferson, North Carolina . 817224972.
- Book: BENTOM (Missionary.), Clark. A Statement of Fact and Law relative to the Prosecution of the Rev. Clark Bentom ... for the assumption of the office of a Dissenting Minister ... in Quebec, by the King's Attorney General of Lower Canada. 1804. For the Author. en.
- Book: Lovett, Richard. India. West Indies. China. Missions abandoned. Home affairs: 1821-1895. Appendices: I. A complete list of the missionaries of the London Missionary Society who have laboured in India, the West Indies, Ultra-Ganges, China, North and South America, and other countries. II. Plan and constitution of the London Missionary Society, established in 1795. III. Analysis of the income and expenditure of the London Missionary Society from 1796 to 1895. 1899. H. Frowde. 630–631. en.
- Web site: CWM - Council for World Mission Archive . 2022-04-27 . SOAS University of London Archive Catalog.
