Background
Langton was born to the Reverend Bennet Langton (1696–1769) and his wife, Diana, daughter of Edmund Torner of Stoke Rochford Hall in Lincolnshire, and descendant of the old family of the Langtons of Langton by Spilsby, Lincolnshire.
Langton was born to the Reverend Bennet Langton (1696–1769) and his wife, Diana, daughter of Edmund Torner of Stoke Rochford Hall in Lincolnshire, and descendant of the old family of the Langtons of Langton by Spilsby, Lincolnshire.
He was baptised in York on 11 January 1736, and he graduated from Trinity College, Oxford in 1757.
He gained an introduction to Johnson as a young man due to his interest in The Rambler. He attended to Johnson during his last illness and was left a book in his will. Despite Johnson"s poor opinion of Langton"s laziness with respect to his own finances, he left Langton £750, from which he was expected to pay an annuity to Francis Barber who had been Johnson"s servant.
He succeeded Johnson as professor of ancient literature at the Royal Academy.
Langton also contributed to The Idler. He died in Southampton on 18 December 1801.
There is a memorial to him in Southampton"s Saint Michael"s Church, with an epitaph by Samuel Johnson. There is also a painting of him by Joshua Reynolds and another by Johann Zoffany called Bennet Langton Contemplating the Nolleken"s Bust of Johnson which is now in the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum.