At the corner of Duke Street and Kent Street there formerly stood a noble mansion, erected in 1768 by Mr. Richard Kent, a merchant of the town, who was the first to build a house
on the site which had extensive gardens and grounds attached, reaching back to Pitt Street
and including the site of St Michael's Church. Mr Kent was the representative, by female descent and inheritance, of the ancient family of Lancelyns of Poulton Lancelyn, Cheshire and their successors, the Greens; his father Randal Kent of Knutsford having married Catherine, the last heiress of that race. Richard was a fine old English gentleman who dispensed hospitality locally in the grounds of his home, with Kent Street being named after him.
About 1788 Richard Kent purchased the manor of Garston from the Corporation for £2,200. Messrs. Peter Baker and John Dawson who held the manor of Garston, and also certain leasehold lands at Garston, held by letters patent from the Crown for a term of years, contracted the land to Richard Gerrard and James Gerrard. Richard Kent afterwards contracted to purchase the same premises from Richard and James Gerrard, which premises Richard Kent, by his will, expressed to have been indeed purchased from Messrs. Ashton and Gerrard. One of his daughters married Lord Henry Murray, the son of the Duke of Athol and another was married to John Blackburne Esq. His only surviving son Joseph succeeded to the Poulton Lancelyn estates and in 1793 by royal license assumed the name and arms of Green. Mrs. Elizabeth Kent continued to reside in Duke Street to nearly the end of the century following the death of Richard Kent in 1790, and his family were also buried in plots 193 and 193a at St. Thomas Church at the north-west side of the graveyard adjacent to the southern wall of the church.
In 1796 the house of Richard then Joseph Kent appears to have been unoccupied, and with Mrs. E. Kent removing to No.74. In 1797, Moses Benson was appointed to the committee charged with conducting the arrangements for the defence of Liverpool, and in 1800 he is shown to have left No.73 in 1796, to the one formerly occupied by the Kents with his son, Ralph Benson, taking up residence in the house his father had vacated. Moses Benson early in life had left Lancashire for the West Indies where he amassed a collossal fortune. Upon his return to England he set up in Liverpool and took up a coat of arms, Argent, a ship in full sail on a chief wavy azure with a dexter hand holding a second argent hilt bearing the scales of Justice. In 1775 he entered the slave trade and between 1775 and his death on the 5th of June 1806, he can be associated with no fewer than 67 slaving ventures. In 1802 he built and endowed St. James's School, in St. James's Road, for poor children. By 1835, the school was educating nearly 200 boys and about 100 girls. James Aspinall, in his 1853 book, 'Liverpool a few years since, by an old Stager', gives a description of Moses Benson's house in Liverpool: "A little higher up than Colonel [John] Bolton’s, but on the same side of Duke-street, stood the noble palace mansion of Moses Benson, one of the merchant princes of the old times of which we are speaking, with its gardens and pleasure grounds, bounded on one side by Cornwallis-street, and on the other by Kent-street, and extending backwards to St. James-street. In Duke-street also lived his son, Ralph Benson, one of the pleasantest and most agreeable men we ever met with, but somewhat, indeed, too much of a Lothario. After his father’s death he resided at Lutwyche, in Shropshire, became connected with the turf, and represented Stafford in several parliaments. His wife, Mrs. Ralph Benson, was an Irish lady, of good family,—a Ross Lewin, we believe,—a charming person, handsome, and accomplished, who gave delightful parties, where all the wits and fashionables of the day used to assemble. And here we must say that the beaux of those times were beaux indeed." The Chetham Society publication of the Manchester Grammar School Admission Register includes the following: "Moses Benson was a liberal patron of the fine arts, and of various philanthropic objects connected with the town of Liverpool, giving back to God largely of the wealth with which God had entrusted him, for church extension and the education of the poor." Moses Benson died on the 5th of June 1806 aged 68 but his will was a controversial document. It identified his four children as his children or 'reputed' children and made no mention of their mother (Judith Powell) whom he never married. According to records in Jamaican archives, Judith Powell was a 'free mulatto', indicating she was a child born to one black parent and the other white, or to parents who were both 'mulatto' (mixed race). Despite the apparent de facto relationship, Judith accompanied Moses and their children on his return Liverpool and remained there until her death. A bequest of £15,000 to his daughter Mary was revoked in the event that she married a native of Ireland. The complications of administering his estate were such as to lead to a private Act of Parliament some 24 years after his death, in 1830.
The Gas Company's offices were situated on the land formerly occupied by the house built by Kent, and afterwards occupied by Benson but now all properties in that area are being re-developed for mixed uses of commercial, restaurants, bars, retail and residential and student dwellings.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2023/03/historic-liverpool-dwellings-62-rodney.html
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