John Bennett (composer)

John Bennett (or Bennet; c. 10 March 1735, Liverpool – September 1784, in London) was an English organist and composer. Biography Details of Bennett’s life are limited, but it is known that he married one Sarah Everett in 1756 in Holborn and died in September 1784. He was buried on 24th of that month, after serving as organist at St Dionis Backchurch, Fenchurch Street in London, for over thirty years. He had outlived his wife who was buried on 15 April 1778. Both were buried at the church. Charles Burney notes that he had been a pupil of Johann Christoph Pepusch and that he ‘knew the rules of counterpoint very well’. Pearce, writing admittedly later in 1907, claims that Bennett was “an organist of sufficient talent to attract G. F. Handel to his performances”. As was fairly typical in the eighteenth century, he was a diverse musician; he played the organ and the viola, taught the harpsichord, and performed at The Drury Lane Theatre as a singer in the chorus and as a dancer. Burney notes that he had ‘played the tenor = viola and occasionally was a Chorus singer and figurante in processions’. According to Thomas Mortimer’s The Universal Director (1763) and the title page of Bennett’s