Background
Bentham was a son of the Review Samuel Bentham (c1681–1733), registrar of Ely Cathedral and vicar of Witchford near Ely, and his wife, Philippa Willen (c1681–1747).
Bentham was a son of the Review Samuel Bentham (c1681–1733), registrar of Ely Cathedral and vicar of Witchford near Ely, and his wife, Philippa Willen (c1681–1747).
From Ely Grammar School, James was admitted 26 March 1727 to Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1730, and Master of Arts
The Benthams were a clerical family, and James was the sixth priest in a continuous descent from Thomas Bentham (1513/14–1579), Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. The family were distant cousins of the philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). in 1738. In 1733 he was presented to the vicarage of Stapleford in Cambridgeshire, which he resigned in 1737, when he was made a minor canon of Ely.
In 1767 Bentham was presented by Bishop Matthias Mawson to the vicarage of Wymondham in Norfolk, and upon his resignation of that living in the following year to the rectory of Feltwell Street Nicholas in the same county.
This preferment he held till 1774, when Bishop Edmund Keene presented him to the rectory of Northwold, which, after five years" tenure, he gave up for a prebendal stall in Ely Cathedral. To this was added in 1783, on the presentation of the Review
Edward Guellaume, the rectory of Bowbrick Hill, Buckinghamshire. Bentham died at his prebendal house, Ely, on 17 November 1794, at the age of 86.
Bentham married twice.
The younger James became vicar of West Bradenham in Norfolk. In 1812-1817 he published, in two volumes at Norwich, a second edition of his father"s History of Ely Cathedral, prefaced by a memoir of his father. Supplements were published by William Stevenson, also at Norwich, in 1817.