SAW HIS DUTY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 243, 19 January 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

SAW HIS DUTY.

ROMANTIC CAREER ENDED O.N THE BATTLEFIELD.

The war has ended many remarkable careers, but it has ended none more dramatic or pathetic than that of Captain Rev. William Kiehard Benton, of the Manchester Regiment, who fell in the battle of the Somrne late in August. Captain Benton's father lived -'t Herne Bay, Kent, and was a stockbroker. " Dick," an he was called, was educated at Frandingham College, Sulfolk. On leaving school he joined his fthef, but later on took it into his head to join the Marine Artillery ns a private. There he was popular witn officers and men, and was fond of sport. Then he made another plunge. He deserted, and went out to Australia. The Boer war called for an Australian contingent: Benton joined it, and fought in South Africa. After the wa: hi joined the Cape Peninsula Police, and found emlpoyment on Robben Island, where the lepers are interned. Becoming religiously inclined, Mr. Benton offered himself for holy orders, and arrangements were being made for him to go to Lichfield Theological College. when conscience asserted itselt, and the deserter went home, gave himself up at the Marine Artillery Barracks, Portsmouth, as a deserter, was tried by courtmartlaJ, and served its sentence —commuted ag to duration. The deserter then went through his theological course and waj ordaine:! and obtained his first curacy at Walsall. Lung trouble induced him to return to South Africa, and there he laboured for a year at a lonely spot in the north-west of the Cape Colony, cailed O'Kiep. Then he went to St. Barnabas', Capetown. There Mr. Benton made his acquaintance with the* lepers of Robben Island, and he always went over to the melancholy *pot when he could, to the great joy of the lepers. Just before leaving the Capo for England in 1912, he sp-.-nt three months on the leper ia'and. engaged in chaplain duties there. That time will always be remembered by these outcasts. Mr. Benton becamo curate at Bearsted, near Maidstone, and on war bracking out he went to France as a military chaplain. His experiences of German t rightfulness and gas were too much for him. and he trained to become a fighting man, and as lieutenant. and afterwards as captain, in the Manchester Regiment he did his share.