George Bennet, 7th Earl of Tankerville

George Montagu Bennet, 7th Earl of Tankerville (30 March 1852 – 9 July 1931), was a British peer, Royal Navy and British Army officer, cowpuncher, circus clown, and revival meeting singer.

Early life Bennet was born at Claridge's Hotel, Brook Street, London on 30 March 1852. He was the second son of Charles Bennet, 6th Earl of Tankerville and Olivia Montagu. His sister, Lady Isa Louise Bennet, was married to John Ramsay, 13th Earl of Dalhousie. His elder brother, Charles, Lord Ossulton, the heir apparent, died, unmarried, of cholera in India on 29 June 1879, while serving with the Rifle Brigade.

His paternal grandparents were Charles Bennet, 5th Earl of Tankerville and the former Armandine Corisande de Gramont (a daughter of the Antoine VIII, 8th Duke of Gramont).

Career He entered the Royal Navy in 1865, was midshipman 1867 to 1869, then left to undergo public school at Radley from 1869 to 1870. He entered the army, becoming a lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade in 1872, eventually serving as aide-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

Lord Tankerville made American headlines in January 1912 when he placed his 14-year-old son (and eventual successor) in a Boston school, saying he wanted him to be "educated in a world where every one worked."

Family

Lord Tankerville, who for a time was a clown in the circus, met his future wife, Leonora Sophia van Marter (d. 1949), when he turned a somersault over a sofa in a New York drawing-room, nearly falling into her lap. They married in Tacoma, Washington on 23 October 1895.

Hon. Georgina Bennet (1896–1896), who died in infancy. They divorced in 1930 and remarried to Violet Pallin in 1930. and was cremated and buried at Chillingham. After his death the Chillingham Estate was broken up,

Descendants Through his eldest son, he was a grandfather of Charles Augustus Grey Bennet, 9th Earl of Tankerville (1921–1980), who married Virginia Diether and Georgiana Wilson; George Arthur Grey Bennet (1925–2001), who married Hazel Judson; Ian Bennet (b. 1935); and Corisande Bennet (b. 1938), who married Lt. Cdr. Timothy Bain Smith.