| Bening Arnold | |
 Bening Arnold (aged 102) in 1926 | |
| Birth: | 25 May 1824 Shoreditch, England, UK |
| Death: | 17 August 1930 Shoreditch, England, UK |
| Age: | 106 years, 84 days |
| Country: |  UK
|
| Centenarian | |
Bening Arnold (25 May 1824 – 17 August 1930) was a British centenarian who survived the shipwreck of the SS Stella, the “Titanic of the Channel Islands”. At the time of his death, he was the oldest known living man in Europe.
Biography[]
Bening Arnold was born in in Shoreditch, England, UK on 25 May 1824 to Edward Arnold and Hannah Acott. He married Emily Mourant and Ophelia Arnold, and had two children Bening Mourant Arnold Jr. and Claude Addison Arnold.
As a boy, he ran away from his Essex school and travelled on a barge to London to make his fortune. He worked as an apprentice in the printing trade and claimed to be the first man to print music from set type. He later became a well-known chronometer maker, jeweller, silversmith, and antique dealer. Arnold retired two years after the Stella disaster to Bournemouth on the south coast of England.
He became well known in later life as a successful bowls player. (That’s lawn bowls, the game played on a bowling green, where players must roll their bowls closest to a jack.) Arnold, “Bournemouth’s grand old man”, took up bowls at the age of 80 and continued playing for more than two decades. As he grew older, newspapers regularly reported on his progress. At 99, it was reported, his daily regime began at 7.30 AM with a hearty breakfast, followed by a walk of nearly a mile uphill to catch a bus to the bowling green. After a full morning of bowling, he spent his afternoons gardening and his evenings playing cribbage, then went to bed at 9.30 PM. “His rule of life has been to take plenty of fresh air and exercise and to be temperate at all things,” he said, adding that he was a non-smoker but not a teetotaller.
On his 102nd birthday, well-wishers and bowlers from around the country gathered at the Alum Chine Bowling Green in Bournemouth to watch him play. Arnold, wearing a Panama hat and velveteen smoking jacket, smiled, shook hands, and “saluted the ladies present”. During the game, in which he was said to hold his own easily, he acknowledged the crowd’s cheers by waving his hat. Shortly after his 103rd birthday, a doctor ordered him not to play again as the excitement was “a little too much for him”.
Bening Arnold died in Shoreditch, England, UK on 17 August 1930 at the age of 106 years, 84 days. At the time of his death, he was believed to be the oldest living man in England and Europe.
Gallery[]
References[]
- Bening Arnold (1824–1930) Find a Grave
- Bening Arnold (1824–1930) Ancestry.com
- Oldest Man in World to Play Bowls Singular Discoveries, 22 July 2021
| United Kingdom's Oldest Living Man Titleholders (V • E) |
|
George Stanforth • John Mosley Turner • John Leng • Frederick Butterfield • James Harrow • Ernest Oxley • Harry Durrant • Arthur Emanuel • James Sellers • Walter Sandford • George Simms • Henry Norman • John Orton • Alfred Grant • John Evans • Samuel Crabbe • Joseph Randle • Jesse Yewdall • William Proctor • David Davies • Vinson Gulliver • David Henderson • Harry Halford • William Lee • Frederick Moore • Harry Laverick • Jerzy Pajaczkowski-Dydynski • Henry Allingham • Harry Patch • Stanley Lucas • Edward Anderson • Reg Dean • Ralph Tarrant • Harold Bracher • Frank Simes • John Mansfield • Alf Smith • Bob Weighton • Harry Fransman • John Tinniswood |