Bennett was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, Southend High School for Boys and the University of Cambridge. He became a priest, published historian, Fellow in Modern History at New College, Oxford and college chaplain and Dean of Divinity, canon of Chichester Cathedral and a member of the Church of England's General Synod and its standing committee. He was a well-known figure in ecclesiastical politics in England, latterly rather definedly on the conservative wing of the Anglo-Catholic movement, being a noted figure in the opposition to the ordination of women.