James Theodore Bent was born in Liverpool on 30 March 1852,Birth certificate registration 31 March 1852. Superintendent Registrar's District: Liverpool; Registrar's District: Mount Pleasant; Birth address: 20 Bedford Street, South Liverpool. the son of James (1807-1876) and Eleanor (née Lambert, c.1811-1873) Bent of Baildon House, Baildon, near Bradford, Yorkshire, where Bent lived in his boyhood. He was educated at Malvern Wells preparatory school, Repton School, and Wadham College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1875. His paternal grandparents were William (1769-1820) and Sarah (née Gorton) Bent; it was this William Bent who founded Bent's Breweries, a successful business which, in various guises, was still in existence into the 1970s, and which helped generate the family's wealth. One of Bent's uncles, Sir John Bent, the brewer, was Liverpool mayor in 1850–51.
