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Biography

Biography of Theodore and Mabel
Mabel alone – after the death of Theodore

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‘Why Old Basil Became a Monk’, by J. Theodore Bent (Karpathos, 1887) 13th April 2025
Many happy returns Theodore – born 30 March 1852 30th March 2025
Fl. Vibia Sabina, the Bent’s statue from Thasos (3rd century CE) 10th March 2025
2000-2025: Twenty-five years of Bent researches – our want list! 23rd February 2025
Mabel Bent: Her ‘Chronicles’ covered… 30th December 2024
Robert McNair Wilson Swan (1858-1904) 15th December 2024
Bent’s correspondence with William Blackwood (Publishers), Edinburgh, 1878-1892 13th November 2024
The Bents’ ‘Great Zimbabwe’ collection in the British Museum 7th November 2024
Taxing – The living worlds of the Bents 25th October 2024
The Bents and the Raj 12th October 2024
Revealed – A second bronze relief plaque of Mabel V.A. Bent by T. Stirling Lee (1895) 3rd October 2024
‘As tireless a writer as traveller’ – some notes on the publishers of Theodore Bent’s books (1879-1900) 15th September 2024
Happy wedding anniversary, 2021, Theodore and Mabel Bent, from Charlotte Bellingham Wrench 2nd August 2024
Citius, Altius, Fortius – The Bents at the Olympics, 1896. 26th July 2024
Bent & Garibaldi – But the ‘Princess Olga’ takes the biscuit 20th July 2024
Tennis anyone? The Hall-Dares at play… 12th July 2024
Bagpipes [tsaboúnes] on ‘Clean Monday’ [Kathará Deftéra] in the village of Dío Choriá, Tinos (the Cyclades, Greece) 3rd July 2024
16 June – Bloomsday greetings James, from the Bents 17th June 2024
In the wake of Ida Laura Pfeiffer (1797-1858) 9th May 2024
A list of Theodore Bent’s ‘Middle East’ articles/publications. 7th May 2024
A list of Theodore Bent’s ‘Africa’ articles/publications (based on today’s borders). 7th May 2024
A list of Theodore Bent’s ‘Turkey and Asia Minor’ articles/publications (based on today’s borders). 6th May 2024
A list of Theodore Bent’s ‘Greece’ articles/publications (based on today’s borders). 5th May 2024
Bent/Carnarvon correspondence – October 1889 24th April 2024
Amorgos amigos 17th April 2024
Birthday greetings from ‘Kalenzia, on the Isle of Sokotra, 1897’. A ‘lost’ watercolour by Theodore Bent 28th March 2024
The Bents’ musical instruments in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford 5th February 2024
Mabel’s two interviews for ‘Lady of the House’ (September 1893 and July 1894) 27th January 2024
Coincidental bedfellows most strange – Balfour, Bent, and Blouet (November 1895) 13th January 2024
‘The Human Unicorn – Mr. Bent’s Interesting Discovery in Lesser Armenia’ (early March 1890) 12th January 2024
The Bent-Glaser Correspondence 11th January 2024
Mabel and the vanished ‘Bethel Seal’ – a controversy still? 1st January 2024
A satirical cartoon, early 19th c., of Mabel Bent’s grandfather, Robert Westley Hall-Dare 29th November 2023
The Bent-Hobson maps of the Holy Land, 1912 13th October 2023
The skeletal material excavated on Antiparos in 1883/4 by Theodore Bent 1st October 2023
Mabel’s Manors – The Essex homes of the Hall-Dares. No. 5: Wyfields, Ilford 12th July 2023
BARD versus BENT – A birthday tribute 29th March 2023
Textiles from Nisyros (Dodecanese) collected by the Bents in 1885 6th February 2023
Mabel Bent – A Cycladic birthday, 28 January 1884 22nd January 2023
A stomacher from Astypalaia, once in the Bent collection, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London 6th January 2023
‘Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging…’ New Year, 2023 29th December 2022
Mabel’s Manors – The Essex homes of the Hall-Dares. No. 4: Cranbrook, Ilford 19th December 2022
The Bents: a rare interview from ‘The Album’, 8th July, 1895 16th December 2022
Mabel’s Manors – The Essex homes of the Hall-Dares. No. 3: Ilford Lodge, Ilford 30th November 2022
Egon Huber (1905-1960): Austrian designer, ceramicist, and philhellene. 23rd November 2022
Mabel’s Manors – The Essex homes of the Hall-Dares. No. 2: East Hall, Wennington 21st November 2022
Mabel’s Manors – The Essex homes of the Hall-Dares. No. 1: Fitzwalters 13th November 2022
Robert Westley Hall (d. 1834) – Mabel Bent’s great-grandfather 27th October 2022
Bent in ‘Black & White’: Introduction 24th August 2022
Lindos: The Living City of Homer I – with pictures by Sir Frederic Leighton, P.R.A. 24th August 2022
Lindos: The Living City of Homer – II (With pictures by Sir Frederic Leighton, P.R.A.) 24th August 2022
A Mercedes, Bents, and St. Paul – with Theodore and Mabel on Crete, April 1885 19th May 2022
An index to the Hellenic Society’s digital version of Mabel Bent’s Cyclades ‘Chronicle’ 15th April 2022
The Bent Collection Scanned: From the Archive of The Hellenic Society, London: The ‘Chronicles’, etc. 9th February 2022
And tonight we have for you… Mr. Theodore Bent! 16th January 2022
Mrs Theodore Bent – The Queen of Explorers 11th January 2022
The Digitisation of Mabel Bent, her ‘Chronicles’, etc. Christmas 2021 18th December 2021
Brand Bent: Two interviews, September & November 1893 7th November 2021
Syrna – a squall and its aftermath in the Dodecanese, April 1888 25th October 2021
The Kidnap and Travels of the Karpathos Lady 24th June 2021
Of Crows and Swans and Calamine – the Archaeology Theatre of Antiparos 7th April 2021
Of Pyramids and Picnics – Theodore, Mabel, the Owl and the Pussycat 31st March 2021
The lost reviews of ‘Southern Arabia’ (1900), by Mabel and Theodore Bent 9th March 2021
Mabel’s Museum – 13 Great Cumberland Place, London, W1 1st March 2021
“A Week on Wheels in East Anglia” – Bent gets on his bike 11th February 2021
In and out (just about) of the Wadi Hadramawt – Mabel of Arabia 1st February 2021
On the Far-off Island of Karpathos – 1885 4th January 2021
And in 1893, Abyssinia’s Aksum (with its obelisks) and the ‘Lioness of Gobedra’ enticed them too… 22nd December 2020
An archaeological view of the stay of the Bents on the Carian Chersonese 29th October 2020
Christopher J. F. A. Struve and Mabel Bent’s grandmother: a long, long way for a plate of butter 27th October 2020
The Bents and the British Museum: in Five Objects 13th October 2020
Mabel Bent: A rare photograph attributed 22nd September 2020
The Bents – Great Friends of Kastellorizo 7th September 2020
Outrage in the Hadhramaut in 1894… and subsequent revenge 18th August 2020
Mabel Bent and the first First Lady… 10th July 2020
Well-known travel writers take to the Bents… 13th June 2020
In exalted company – Mabel Bent and other ‘Tatler’ travellers, 1910 31st May 2020
‘In the Footsteps of Theodore and Mabel’ – Jennifer Barclay, May 2020 18th May 2020
‘Few who see Mrs. Theodore Bent for the first time…’ says Vincent B. Weeks 29th March 2020
Reunited – well on Wikipedia anyway! 10th March 2020
Mabel’s three grand Irish homes, still in good hands! 18th February 2020
Two unpublished letters from Theodore Bent to William Paton – 1890 6th January 2020
No “no rooz” for the Bents – well, maybe one 1st January 2020
Lear, Bent & Tozer 27th December 2019
‘Theodore Bent’s Turkish embroidery bequest’ – The Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston 22nd December 2019
Mabel Bent and Gertrude Bell – two B’s in a pod 6th December 2019
A bookplate without a book… 27th November 2019
Love in the Levant – archaeologist William Paton’s encounter with a Greek goddess – Kalymnos, 1885 29th September 2019
Mabel, Theodore, and Thomas Cook & Son 28th August 2019
VIDEO – Manolis Pelekis: A lament for the great tsabouna player from Anafi 22nd August 2019
The legend of Kyra Panagia and the tragic story of the hermit monk Vasilis 8th August 2019
Friedrich v. Vincenz assists Mabel Bent on Tilos in the Dodecanese: ‘All the women here are terrified at the idea of being photographed and my camera is rather a “white elephant”!’ 24th July 2019
90th anniversary of the death of Mabel Bent – 3 July 1929 15th July 2019
Mabel tours the wards – The English Hospital, Jaffa, 1909 11th May 2019
RIP: Death of a noted Baildonian – Theodore Bent, 5 May 1897 5th May 2019
The Bents at Easter In Amorgos – 1883 28th April 2019
‘Baildon House’, Baildon, West Yorkshire, UK – Theodore Bent’s childhood home 11th April 2019
The Bents and thoughts of and for Beira, March 2019 19th March 2019
Mortimer Wheeler follows Theodore Bent to Great Zimbabwe, 1958 23rd February 2019
Mabel – with thoughts of diamonds on the soles of her shoes 14th February 2019
Greek Dress at the Hellenic Centre, London – 4 February until 2 March 2014 – with Bent references! 10th February 2019
The ‘Syra British Cemetery’ – Syros 3rd February 2019
People come and go: to the memory of the kind William Pryor Binney, H.B.M. Consul on Syros and friend to the Bents 1st February 2019
Matthaios Simos – Anafiot dragoman extraordinaire! 18th January 2019
Mabel and the Virtue of Patience 11th January 2019
Over the rainbow with the Bents 6th January 2019
Gold, Frankincense, and Mabel – The Bents at Christmas 21st December 2018
Mabel Hall-Dare: Chronicles of Mrs. Theodore Bent… reviewed by Janeite Kelly (Dec 2018) 19th December 2018
‘Mabel was I ere I saw Olba’: 1 – Around Athenian tables, February 1890 11th December 2018
The Bents – Great Friends of Samos 16th November 2018
The Bents – Great Friends of Tilos 7th November 2018
Meet Mabel’s Mother – Frances Anna Catherine Hall-Dare (née Lambart). 27th August 2018
Theodore and the Tsabouna (video) 11th August 2018
Happy Wedding Anniversary, Theodore and Mabel – 2nd August 1877 2nd August 2018
‘Mrs Bent and her Camera. Photo by Russell & Sons, London, probably Spring, 1895’ 23rd July 2018
The Bents’ hotels – the ‘Grand Hôtel d’Angleterre’, Ermoúpoli (Sýros) 7th July 2018
The Bents’ Fleet: vessels travelled on in the Levant, Africa, and Arabia by Theodore and Mabel Bent, c. 1880-1900 7th July 2018
Mabel’s parasol for a splint: A broken leg in the desert 1st July 2018
Incidentally V: Margaret Kenna, and the Bents on Anáfi in 1884 – ‘Kalamiotissa’ 5th June 2018
Incidentally IV: Margaret Kenna, and the Bents on Anáfi in 1884 – ‘Kastelli’ 14th May 2018
Incidentally III: Margaret Kenna, and the Bents on Anáfi in 1884 – My style rocks? 26th April 2018
Incidentally II: Margaret Kenna, and the Bents on Anáfi in 1884 – Antiquities and Inscriptions 9th April 2018
Incidentally I: Margaret Kenna, and the Bents on Anáfi in 1884 – Adventures getting to, and leaving 15th March 2018
Spring thoughts of the Bents on Anafi 12th March 2018
‘A traveller without a map……’ 1st February 2018
Many happy returns Mabel on your birthday today (28 January)! 28th January 2018
Papers say: Lost Oil Portrait Of Theodore Bent Discovered! Now Read On…. 24th January 2018
‘My dear People’ – A Hall-Dare Pedigree and Photograph Album 5th January 2018
Bent’s Last Christmas – 1896, Sokotra 21st December 2017
‘My baby eyes first looked out on an extremely beautiful bit of this world…’ 10th December 2017
Zimbabwe: The Bents in Harare (Fort Salisbury) and around, September 1891 27th November 2017
Woodcock and mizithra 4th November 2017
At last! The Bents in three easy steps! 2nd November 2017
Mabel’s Menus: the culinary notes of an archaeologist (1880-1900) 16th October 2017
New Archaeopress blog post features the Bents 21st August 2017
Mabel’s Chronicles: April 3rd 1885 (Easter) – Karpathos 3rd April 2017
Mabel’s Chronicles: January 23rd 1884 – Ios 23rd January 2017
Mabel’s Chronicles: December 25th 1883 – Naxos 18th December 2016
Mabel’s Chronicles: December 1st 1883 – Syra (Syros) 1st December 2016
Mabel’s Chronicles: November 26th 1883 – Athens 26th November 2016

home
bio
explorations
chronicles & letters
books etc
- books, ebooks and audio
- bibliography
discovery
articles
- article themes
  - Africa
  - Arabia
  - Bent bench
  - biographical
  - costumes
  - general
  - Greece
  - homes and gardens
  - hotels
  - Italy
  - Mabel’s chronicles
  - Mabel’s letters
  - Mabel’s menus
  - Music
  - photography
  - rediscovery
  - ships
  - travel writers on the Bents
  - Turkey
  - video