His elder brother, Edward (1707–1776) became a distinguished theologian and natural philosopher, and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford.
[1] From Ely Grammar School, James was admitted 26 March 1727 to Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he graduated B.A.
[2] In 1767 Bentham was presented by Bishop Matthias Mawson to the vicarage of Wymondham in Norfolk, and upon his resignation of that living in the following year to the rectory of Feltwell St Nicholas in the same county.
This preferment he held till 1774, when Bishop Edmund Keene presented him to the rectory of Northwold, which, after five years' tenure, he gave up for a prebendal stall in Ely Cathedral.
[2] In 1757, Bentham published proposals for making turnpike roads under the title of Queries Offered to the Consideration of the Principal Inhabitants of the City of Ely and Towns adjacent.
His plan, after encountering ridicule, was carried into effect under powers obtained by an act of parliament passed in 1763, and by the aid of subscriptions and loans of money.
During the later period of his life Bentham collected materials for illustrating the "Ancient Architecture of this Kingdom", a work he was unable to complete.