English traveller and archaeologist born at Baildon House, Yorkshire and educated at Repton school and Wadham College, Oxford. After graduating in 1875 he travelled every year, mainly to Italy and Greece, after which he turned to a career as a writer and archaeological researcher. Often referred to as Theodore Bent, he studied sites in the eastern Mediterranean, Arabian Peninsula and Africa, in 1893-1894 visiting at considerable risk the almost unknown region of the Hadramawt (Yemen). In his travels he was always accompanied by his wife Mabel, whom he married in 1877. The comparatively small but important natural history collections from the expeditions of J.T. and M.V.A. Bent were mostly made by other collectors, though they are credited with making their own botanical collections. On their last journey to the Arabian Peninsula (1896-1897), J.T. Bent contracted malaria and pneumonia leading to his death in London on 5th May 1897, aged 45. His wife published an account of their last expeditions in Africa and Arabia from their diaries which are now held at the London University Institute of Classical Studies.