She was educated at Burlington school, Westminster, which was evacuated during the Second World War, to Milham Ford School in Oxford.
She then took a degree in history and a diploma in education at Westfield College. In 1949 she went to Hong Kong for the Church Mission Society. She was ordained a deacon in 1962.
Bishop Gilbert Baker petitioned the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, for permission to ordain women.
Hong Kong had already ordained a woman priest, Florence Li Tim-Oi, during the Japanese occupation in the Second World War. Bennett was ordained a priest in December 1971.
She was the founding principal of Street Catharine"s School for Girls, Kwun Tong. She was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1978, and in 1984 received an honorary doctorate from Hong Kong University.
In 1994 she was made an Honorary Fellow of Queen Mary University of London.
Bennett wrote two books, Hasten Slowly - The first legal ordination of women priests (Little London Associates Publishing, 1991), and her autobiography, This God Business (2003).
Bennett served as an Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1976 to 1983.
