Vincent Douglas Bennett

Vincent Douglas Bennett, the second son of Cleveland Bennett and Charlotte Bradshaw, was born on 16th March 1930 into a Baptist family in the Comsee District of St Mary's Parish, Jamaica.
A natural-born hard worker, he asked his father to fund his passage to England upon leaving school. Instead, his father Cleveland simply showed him an acre of land, where the elder Bennett instructed his ambitious son to plant bananas from which he could then use the money to pay for his travel. However, it was then that Vincent met one of the first obstacles he had to overcome in
the long, storied adventure of his life. Hurricane Charlie - deemed "Jamaica's worst hurricane disaster of the century" by the American Weather Bureau - struck in August 1951, taking the lives of over 150 people while injuring a further 2,000 and rendering thousands more homeless. The USD$50 million property and crop damage - over USD$600 million in today's money - it caused encompassed Vincent's crop of bananas. In the aftermath of the hurricane's terror, the Jamaican government compensated the farmers for their loss, which enabled him to immigrate to Birmingham, England.
Through his immigration to England, Vincent became part of what is now widely referred to as the 'Windrush Generation' - a mass-migration movement consisting of people predominantly born in Caribbean countries colonised by Britain. The generation is symbolically named after the HMT Empire Windrush, a boat whose 1948 docking is widely considered to be the beginning of mass migration from the Caribbean to the UK. Vincent, however, likely travelled on the SS Auriga instead before disembarking in the Southwest English city of Plymouth in late 1954.
He eventually settled in Birmingham, in England's West Midlands region. There, he lived in close proximity to the renowned Edgbaston Cricket Ground, where West Indies stars such as Brian Lara and Rohan Kanhai plied their trade in the years to come. During his time in England, he honed his
skills as a master welder - a trade he became so closely associated with that he is still to this day known to many by the fitting nickname, 'Greasy'. The strong aptitude he demonstrated for the welding profession earned him employment with esteemed multinational companies such as the Ford Motor Company.
Upon returning to Jamaica in the early 1960s, Vincent presided over his own welding works, where he employed many people in the local community who graciously benefited from his tutelage informed by several years in the profession.
He also spent a considerable amount of time in the United States, where he reaped the rewards of the foundations he laid, as his expansive support network of children and grandchildren went on to care for him amidst periods of ill health. That included alternating between winter months in Miami residing with his daughter Claudia, and the warmer points of the year in Connecticut with his daughter Maria, where he was baptised in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. It was here in Philadelphia, though, where he spent his final moments with his daughter Elsa and son Matthew as his attentive caregivers.
Vincent passed away peacefully on Friday 21st February 2025 at Elsa's home in Philadelphia at the age of 94. Living so long is a testament to his inherently athletic nature, active mindset and robust appetite. Considering his immensely proud mentality that many of you are no doubt familiar with,
it should come as no surprise that he boldly claimed to do body strength exercises and stretches every morning and night. In fact, in a rather humorous anecdote, he enthusiastically performed many of those in front of his observing brother Orville, daughter Petula and a couple of his grandsons as a demonstration of his impressive health relative to age during a visit to England in 2018.
His aforementioned brother Orville preceded him in death, as did his other siblings Wendell and Margaret, his parents Cleveland and Charlotte, and his great-grandson Shaquille.
He is survived by his children Neville, Nadine, Elsa, Maria, Marcia, Claudia, Glenda, Petula, Matthew and Andre.
The family tree he stands atop of further includes twenty-six grandchildren, fifteen great grandchildren, two great-great-grandchildren, nieces Tessa and Sonia, nephew Patrick and many more relatives and friends who all mourn his passing alongside us sat here today.
Thank you for taking the time to pay your respects.