He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge.[7] While at Westminster School,[8] he played for the school's First XI cricket team and faced the MCC for the first time in June 1837, scoring 14 and 13, although his team was defeated by 49 runs,[9] and for a second time in July 1839 when he opened the innings with scores of two and six.[10]
Career
In 1840, Cavendish-Bentinck was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards, but retired in 1841 after only a year. He joined the MCC to play against Oxford University on 11 June 1840 – his debut first-class match. Oxford, despite playing at home, fell to a heavy defeat as the MCC won by seven wickets. Cavendish-Bentinck made 11.[11] His one appearance for Cambridge came in a match against the MCC, on 1 July 1841. Apart from various appearances for the MCC against school sides, Cavendish-Bentinck would play eight other first-class games for the MCC, scoring fifty-three runs in total, including a best of 29 not out.[12] Add to this one match between two invitational teams – a Slow Bowlers XI featuring Bentinck versus a Fast Bowlers XI – and Cavendish-Bentinck played eleven games in total, scoring 66 runs at a low batting average of 5.50.[13][14]
On 14 August 1850, Cavendish-Bentinck married Prudentia Penelope Leslie (d. 1896), the daughter of Col. Charles Powell Leslie II.[1][23] Together, they had two sons and two daughters:[24]
In 1889, Cavendish-Bentinck was named by rentboy John Saul in his police statement as a client of the infamous male brothel at the heart of the Cleveland Street Scandal.[29]
Cavendish-Bentinck purchased Branksea Castle on Brownsea Island in 1873 and introduced Jersey cows and developed agriculture on the island.[30] He died there in April 1891, aged 69.[31] His wife survived him by five years and died in June 1896.
^ abCraig, F. W. S. (1989) [1977]. British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 300. ISBN0-900178-26-4.
^Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1974]. British parliamentary election results 1885–1918 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 208. ISBN0-900178-27-2.
^Raymond L. Schults, Crusader in Babylon: W. T. Stead and the Pall Mall Gazette, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1972. ISBN0-8032-0760-3, p. 138-145.