Career
Bennett was a successful businessman and one of the island"s richest residents with interests in the fisheries, distillery and brewery industry and shipbuilding. Bennett"s party defeated Carter"s Conservatives on the Confederation issue in the 1869 elections, allowing Bennett to form a government in 1870. However, as Premier he was unable to keep his party united, and in 1874 resigned, allowing Carter to return to power.
The issue of Confederation had become a moot point and would not be seriously raised again until the Great Depression.
Bennett"s anti-Confederates reformed themselves into the colony"s Conservative Party.
