British taxonomist from Stoke, Plymouth, the son of inventor and naval architect Samuel Bentham (1757-1831), a pioneer in the engineering methods of mass production. Samuel's brother was the famous philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) who was a founder of the University of London. George Bentham was taught by his mother, Lady Mary Sophia Bentham (née Fordyce) and studied botany through the publications of A.P. de Candolle on his father's estate near Montpellier, France (1814-1826). His first publication (1826) was on the flora of the area he was familiar with in southern France and the adjacent Pyrenees. He anounced his intention to register at Lincoln's Inn and become a lawyer, but his uncle forcefully dissuaded him. George eventually inherited from both his father and uncle a few years later, becoming independantly wealthy, and turned his attention fully to botany.

Bentham specialised in the families Lamiaceae and Scrophulariaceae and worked extensively on the British colonial floras. He wrote the botanical account for the published report of Sir Edward Belcher's voyage of HMS Sulphur (1844-1846). By far his most ambitious work, Genera Plantarum (1862-1883) was co-authored with J.D. Hooker and was a comprehensive revision of the higher classification of flowering plants. It produced the circumscription of many families recognised today. Bentham was Secretary of the Horticultural Society of London (1829-1840) and elected President of the Linnean Society (1861-1874). He was awarded a doctorate in law from Cambridge University (1874). His original herbarium of over 100,000 specimens was donated to K (1854) but many original cryptogams were transferred to BM (c. 1961) under the terms of the Morton Agreement. For several of his publications he studied material on loan from other institutions, for example the original collections of the voyage of HMS Sulphur which are at BM including his designated type specimens.