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Reverend John Harrison BENNETT

1924-2007

John left Framlingham in 1942 having perhaps concentrated too much on sport at the expense of his Latin, and had to take the Oxford University Latin Entrance Exam in order to study there. He entered Oxford in the autumn of 1942 but after one year joined the army and duly received a commission in the Royal Artillery. He was always proud of his Gunner’s tie and wore it every year at the Anzac Day Parade in his adopted country of Australia. From March 1945 to September 1946 John served in the Far East and, in Thailand, took part in the surrender ceremony of the Japanese troops in the area.

In October 1946 John resumed his religious studies at Oxford and now, after his wartime experiences, his sense of call to the ministry had developed and become much clearer. In his last year at Oxford in 1950 John met Dorothy Burgmann, a very attractive Australian student with lovely green eyes, and, after only five months, John proposed to her in the grounds of Framlingham Castle. He was ordained in the Headgate Congregational Church in Colchester in September 1950 and married Dorothy at the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford on 11th March 1952. Margaret and Peter were born in England and when, in 1955, the family went to spend two years in Australia, David and Susie were born there. Two years became a lifetime and in 1980 John became an Australian citizen although visits to England, Suffolk and Framlingham were regular events and he was always proud to show his family his Suffolk heritage including the College. His oath of allegiance to Australia did not in his view include support for national teams and he always supported England for sporting contests.

From his arrival in Australia John was part of the movement towards church union. His Congregational church in Adelaide backed on to a Methodist church but the gate between them was kept locked. Late in the 1960s the lock was removed and the two churches united to form one church in 1969. John also became one of the 21 members of the Joint Commission on Church Union which produced the proposed Basis of Union on which the three churches – Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational – eventually voted to form the Uniting Church in Australia. John believed he had been part of a great reformation movement which not only affected church life but the life of communities across Australia and the nation itself.

John spent his working life devoted to his ministry and the members of his community and, by all accounts, was an outstanding preacher and pastor. Married to Dorothy for 55 years he was equally devoted to her and his family and still found space for Framlingham and its community in Australia.

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