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 Backchuch, Fenchurch Street in London, for over thirty years.
Pearce, writing admittedly later in 1907, claims that Bennett was "an organist of sufficient talent to attract G. F. Handel to his performances".
[1] 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.
According to Thomas Mortimer's The Universal Director (1763) and the title page of Bennett's own Ten Voluntaries for the Organ or the Harpsichord, he lived at Boswell Court near Queen Square, Bloomsbury (Holborn).
He succeeded Charles Burney as organist at St. Dionis-Backchurch, Fenchurch Street, in 1752 and was elected after audition by unanimous vote.
An interesting aside for organists is the information provided in the church vestry minutes for July 27, 1749, when Burney took up the post: ".
Selections can also be found in CH Trevor's series Early English Organ Music for Manuals (5 vols).
The copies in the British Library and the collection at Oxford contain the subscription list of no fewer than 227 names including Boyce, Stanley and George Fredrick Handel.
On comparing the score with the registration of the organ at St Dionis Backchurch, where Bennett served as organist, it is clear that the stop indications point specifically towards that particular instrument which had been installed by Renatus Harris and son John in 1724.
In his Voluntaries, Bennett uses three of the usual keyboard ornaments: the trill (shake), the beat (modern equivalent the lower mordent) and the appoggiatura.