Biography

Robert Lubbock Bensly (1831-93), Hebrew, Syriac and biblical scholar, born at Eaton, near Norwich, Norfolk, on 24 August 1831, was the second son of Robert Bensly of Eaton, and his wife, Harriet Reeve. Educated in Eaton at a private school (where he began the study of Hebrew), and King's College, London (1848-51), he matriculated in 1851 at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; he was a scholar there from 1852 to 1855, and graduated second class in the classical tripos in 1855. He was college lecturer in Hebrew from 1861 to 1889, and was fellow of the college from 1876 until his death. In 1857 he gained the Tyrwhitt university scholarship for Hebrew. He studied from 1855 to 1860 at German universities, at Bonn and then at Halle, where he became the pupil of Rödiger, especially in Syriac. From 1864 to September 1876 Bensly was under-librarian at Cambridge University Library, and from 1887 until his death he was Lord Almoner's professor of Arabic.

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