Hastings Charles Dent
Hastings Charles Dent (1855-1909)
1909 Obituary [1]
HASTINGS CHARLES DENT, born on the 23rd July, 1855, was trained for the engineering profession at the Owens College, Manchester, the Crystal Palace School of Engineering, and with Messrs. Charles Fox and Sons.
Subsequently he returned to the Crystal Palace School, as an assistant to the Principal, Mr. J. W. Wilson, and in 1878 he obtained an appointment in the City Surveyor’s Office, Manchester, where he was employed for several years upon various municipal works of construction and improvement.
In 1883 he went out to Brazil for Messrs. Ross and Mathews, to undertake surveys for the Minas Central Railway, and on his return in the following year, he retired from professional pursuits, subsequently travelling extensively for the benefit of his health.
He then settled down at his home at Godstone, Surrey, where he devoted himself to the pursuit of certain branches of science in which he was always keenly interested. He was a Fellow of the Linnean Society, the Zoological Society, and the Royal Geographical Society, and was the Author of various works on religious and scientific subjects. His work, "A Year in Brazil," published in 1886, contains much useful scientific and general information in regard to that country, and he possessed a valuable scientific museum, collected in the course of his various travels.
He died at Godstone on the 6th March, 1909, in his fifty-fourth year.
Mr. Dent was elected an Associate Member of The Institution on the 5th April, 1881.