Born in Suffolk; educated in a local National School and privately before being apprenticed to a Colchester bookseller. In Jan. 1875, in delicate health, he left for Australia, where two married sisters already lived. He died there early in 1876 (word reached his family in England in June). In 1877 Bentley published a biography of him by his sister, Mrs. Susanna Cottee, who had been with him throughout his last days in Australia. [Letters from John Munnings, a brother, and his mother, Susanna Munnings, to George Bentley, Univ. Illinois.]