Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
The bloody Battle of Bossenden Woods
How ‘Mad Thom’ led the last armed insurrection on English soil in woods near Canterbury...
In 1838, 29-year-old Lieutenant Henry Boswell Bennett was serving with the 45th Regiment of Foot (Sherwood Foresters) in Canterbury.
He led a unit called to deal with the last armed insurrection on English soil - that of the Cornishman John Nichols Thom, also known as ‘Mad Thom’ or, as he preferred, ‘Sir William Courtenay, Knight of Malta and King of Jerusalem’. Thom, who had suffered from serious long term mental instability, was leading the revolt of a small band of local rural workers.
After a brief skirmish, lasting only a few minutes, Courtenay shot Lieutenant Bennett dead on May 31 in Bossenden Wood near Hernhill. He was duly shot dead himself by soldiers and eight of his followers were killed or mortally wounded. Bennett thus became the first officer to die in the service of Queen Victoria. On June 2, 1838, he was buried with full military honours in the cloisters - an event attracting 6,000 spectators.
Given the special circumstances, the Cathedral authorities waived the normal ban on firing of guns in the precincts and permitted three volleys over Bennett’s grave. Bennett has been described as “young, inexperienced, impetuous, and thirsting for martial glory and promotion”. Had he withdrawn for just a few minutes to wait for colleagues to arrive in support, Thom might have seen the hopelessness of his situation and surrendered. Thom’s surviving followers were captured and received a range of sentences. Two were sentenced to death but reprieved to be transported for life; one was transported for 10 years; and six were imprisoned for one year with one month in solitary.
Bennett’s father, Major Bennett, with 39 years’ service, applied for, and was granted, a small increase in his pension to help him bear his loss.
■ Information used with kind permission of Canterbury Historical and Archaelogical Society. See www.canterburyarchaeology.org.uk.