Mabel Virginia Anna Bent (née Hall-Dare, a.k.a. Mrs James Theodore Bent) (28 January 1847 – 3 July 1929), was an Anglo-Irish explorer, excavator, writer and photographer. With her husband, James Theodore Bent, she spent two decades (1877–1897) travelling, collecting and researching in remote regions of the Eastern Mediterranean, Asia Minor, Africa, and Arabia.Much of the biographical material herein is from two obituaries of Mabel Bent: 'Mrs. Theodore Bent', Nature 124, 65 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/124065a0 and The Times, 4 July 1929.
Early life
Hall-Dare was born on 28 January 1847. Her birthplace was her grandfather's estate, Beauparc, on the River Boyne in County Meath, Ireland. Via her mother, Frances Anna Catherine Lambart, she descends from Oliver Lambart, 1st Lord Lambart, Baron of Cavan (died June 1618), English MP for Southampton (1597), Governor of Connaught (1601), Irish Privy Counsellor (1603). He is buried in Westminster Abbey.Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage (1914, London, pp.1151-2); Navan & District Historical Society (viewed 25/04/2025). Shortly after her birth the Hall-Dares moved to Temple House, County Sligo, before re-locating in the early 1860s to County Wexford, acquiring the property that was later to become Newtownbarry House, in Newtownbarry (now the village of Bunclody). While young, Hall-Dare suffered several bereavements, losing both her parents and her two brothers.
Hall-Dare and her sisters received education at home with private governesses and tutors.Obituary, 'Mrs J. Theodore Bent', The Times, 4 July 1929.
Distant cousins (via the Lambarts), and having met in Norway,Mabel V.A. Bent, 'In the Days of My Youth: Chapters of Autobiography', M.A.P., 10, Issue 240 (17 January 1903), pp. 72-3 (M.A.P. [Mainly about People]: A Popular Penny Weekly of Pleasant Gossip, Personal Portraits, and Social News. Hall-Dare married J. Theodore Bent on 2 August 1877 in the church of Staplestown, County Carlow, not far from Mabel's Irish home. There was wealth on both sides, and the Bents set up home first at 43 Great Cumberland Place, near Marble Arch, in London, later moving closer to the Arch at number 13; Mabel remained in that same rented townhouse for 30 years after Theodore's death in 1897, until her own death in 1929.'Few who see Mrs. Theodore Bent for the first time would dream that a woman so apparently fragile and so essentially feminine could be one of the most daring of travellers and adventure-lovers. It is almost more easy to say where Mrs. Bent has not been than where she has travelled. She has explored Asia Minor in its wildest recesses, and is familiar with the remotest by-ways of Persia. She knows Arabia better than West London; and in fact has roamed almost everywhere from the Cyclades to Central Africa, while she has faced death in a hundred forms. And yet so adaptable is this charming lady that when you see her in her home in Great Cumberland Place you might pardonably think that she had never wandered more than a hundred miles from her drawing-room, so naturally does she fit her environment.' (Bromyard News – Thursday 8 October 1903).
Bent's Journeys 1877–1897
Mabel and Theodore Bent’s first journeys took them to Italy at the end of the 1870s, Theodore, who history at Oxford University,Obituary, J, Theodore Bent, The Times, 7 May 1897. being interested in GaribaldiJ. Theodore Bent, The Life of Giuseppe Garibaldi, 1881. London, Longmans, Green, and Co. and Italian unification. From there, Theodore decided to pursue a career as a historian and amateur archaeologist. For the next twenty-seven years, the couple would embark on annual travels across the Mediterranean, Africa, and Arabia.
The Bents chose to spend the winter and spring months of every year traveling, using summers and autumns to write up their findings and prepare for their next campaigns. Their main geographical fields of interest can be roughly grouped into three primary areas: Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean (the 1880s); Africa (the early 1890s); and Southern Arabia (the mid 1890s).Expanded details of all the Bents' journeys are available at http://tambent.com/.
Mabel documented her travels with a series of diaries or ‘Chronicles’.The Travel Chronicles of Mrs J. Theodore Bent (3 vols), 2006, 2010, 2012. Oxford, Archaeopress. These contained her travel notes, findings, and observations. Her husband used her notebooks as aides memoires in his own writings. Her collection of notebooks is now in the archives of the Hellenic and Roman Library, Senate House, London.London University: Institute of Classical Studies: NRA 35451 (Bent). Several of her letters home from Africa and Arabia are held in the Royal Geographical Society in London.
Starting in 1885, Bent travelled with her photographic equipment and, from then on, became expedition photographer.The Travel Chronicles of Mrs. J. Theodore Bent, Vol. 1, 2006, Oxford, page 80. She often travelled with a large quantity of equipment, including two to three cameras, chemicals, glass plates, film, and a portable darkroom. Few of her original photographs have survived, but many were used to produce the illustrations that feature in her husband's books and articles, and the lantern slides that enhanced his lectures at the Royal Geographical Society in London and elsewhere.For Mabel Bent's photographs, see, in particular, Southern Arabia (Theodore and Mabel Bent), 1900. London, Smith, Elder and Co.
The Greek and Eastern Mediterranean Travels Source:
1882-1883: The Greek Mainland 1883-1884: The Cyclades 1885: The Greek Dodecanese 1886: Istanbul and along the Turkish Coast 1887: Thásos and Northern Aegean 1888: Asia Minor Littoral
Greek Mainland In the Winter of 1882-1883, the Bents explored the archeological sites of Tiryans, Mycenae, and Delphi. On their way home, they stopped at the Cycladic islands of Tinos and Amorgos to witness the Easter celebrations, leading the pair to embark on more in depth expeditions to the region in the Spring of 1884.
The Cyclades On the Cycladic island of Antiparos in early 1884, the Bents were shown some prehistoric graves by local mining engineers, Robert and John Swan.J. Theodore Bent, The Cyclades; or, Life among the Insular Greeks, 1885. London, Longmans & Co., Chapter XVI. Theodore Bent undertook amateur archaeological investigations at two sites on the island and returned to London with skeletal remnants which are now in the Natural History Museum, and many ceramic, stone and obsidian finds that now form a significant part of the British Museum's Cycladic collection; within a few months he had published the material'Researches among the Cyclades'. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 5, 42-59. [With J.G. Garson]. and his career as an archaeologist/ethnographer, and in which his wife was to be central, was launched. These expeditions culminated in Theodore’s most popular work, (1885) The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks.J. Theodore Bent, The Cyclades; or, Life among the Insular Greeks, 1885. London, Longmans & Co.
It was during this trip that Mabel Bent began her 'Chronicles'.
The Greek Dodecanese In 1885, the Bents explored the islands currently known as the Greek Dodescanese. In 1885, the region belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Their main internist was Kárpathos, where the Bents acquired a Limestone statue which is housed in the British Museum. They also stopped at Rhodes, Nisyros, and Tilos, searching for antiquities, textiles, and ceramics.
It is within this chronicle that Mabel first references her role as expedition photographer, which she continued to hold throughout all the Bents’ expeditions. Mabel was particularly interested in the traditions and customs of the Dodecanese, which she captured with her photography and writings.
Istanbul and the Turkish Coast Using a grant from the Hellenic Society, the Bents led a journey down the Turkish island of Sámos and Chíos. However, in Sámos, they encountered some problems with the local authorities, due to not having permission to dig in the island. Mabel mentioned in her diaries about the schemes the crew employed to avoid local “pirates” along the Turkish coast. The Bents were accompanied by their dragoman Manthaios Símos from the Cycladic island of Anafi. He was invited on most of their journeys until their final one in 1897.
The Bents travelled across the Northern Aegean in 1887, working their way up the Turkish coast. They stopped along Metéora, Vólos, and Thessaloníki before reaching their intended destination of Thásos. Theodore’s main discoveries centered on the remains of the Arch of Caracalla. The Bents also evacuated a number of marble statues. It was also on this island that Mabel acquired her pet tortoise, ‘Thraki’.
The marble items from Thásos were taken to an archaeological museum in Istanbul, despite the Bents’ efforts. The couple in turn spent much of the summer and autumn of 1887 trying to build support to “rescue” the artifacts from the Ottoman authorities and bring them to London. In 1888, the Director of Antiquities in Turkey, Hamdi Bey, restricted the Bents from further expedition on Turkish lands.
Despite Ottoman restrictions, in 1888, the Bents led an expedition along the Asia Minor littoral, going as far as Kastellórizo. Mabel wrote in her diary, “Everyone says it is better to dig first and let them say Kismet after, than to ask leave of the Turks and have them spying there”. The Hellenic society funded the Bents evacuations of sites in ancient Loryma, Lydae, and Myra. Thedore entitled his article on this journey, ‘A Piratical F.S.A.”.
The African Journeys Source:
January 1885 - February 1885: Cairo, Egypt January 1891 - March 1892: ‘Mashonaland’ (modern Zimbabwe) on behalf of Cecil Rhodes to explore the site of Great Zimbabwe January 1893- March 1893: Ethiopia (Askum) December 1895 - April 1896: Sudan
Zimbabwe
In 1891, Mabel Bent accompanied Theodore on an excavation he led on the ruins of Mashonaland. The expedition was funded by the Royal Geographical Society (RSG), the British South Africa Company, and the British Association of Science. Cecil Rhodes, founder of the BSAC, chose Bent because of his prior archaeological work on the Phoenicians. Rhodes had plans to develop a British colony in Zimbabwe and evidence of the "foreign origin” of Great Zimbabwe’ would justify European colonization of the region.
Theodore supported the theories of Cecil Rhodes, claiming “that the ruins and the things in them are not in any way connected with any known African race”.Theodore Bent, “On the Finds at the Great Zimbabwe Ruins: With a View to Elucidating the Origin of the Race that Built Them,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 22 (1892-93): 132. Theodore originally concluded that the ruins were of Persian origin, but later changed his theory claiming that the former civilization was in fact related to the Phoenicians. Bent theorized that the builders of the ruins came from the Arabian Peninsula. He further theorized this prehistoric race was then absorbed into the Phoenician and Egyptian races.
Theodores’s resulting book, “The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland,” was one of his most popular. The book included many illustrations derived from Mabel’s photography.
Ethiopia
In January of 1893, the Bents travelled to the ancient capital of the Abyssinian empire, Aksum. Theodore sought to support his Great Zimbabwe findings by identifying archaeological similarities between the interior of Ethiopia and the ruins of Mashonaland. The expedition was funded by the British Museum, the RGS, and the British Association of Science. Theodore published their findings in The Sacred City of the Ethiopians. Many reviews praised Mabel’s photographs of the ruins, especially those of the monument of Axum.
Sudan