This past week marked Harry Bentley’s 147th birthday. As the founder, first president, and one of the earliest professors of our university, Harry Bentley has played an integral role in the university’s history. But how did he get there?
Born in Harwington, Connecticut, Harry Clark Bentley was the youngest of six children. When his father became too sick to work, his mother and oldest brother worked to provide for the family. This resulted in frequent moves that stunted Bentley’s academic attendance. In fact, he only completed his schooling up until the seventh grade. Despite his lack of interest in studying, Bentley possessed the traits of a natural-born leader. He was known for being inclusive towards his peers from different races and religions, claiming that it did not matter to him.
To improve his academic performance, young Bentley was sent to the Robbins School in Norfolk, where he excelled in athletics, particularly baseball. It was at the Robbins School that Harry Bentley discovered accountancy and his natural excellence at it. Just one year after arriving, he dropped out of the school to pursue his newfound interest. After another year of drifting aimlessly and working mixed jobs, Bentley enrolled himself in the Eastman Business College in New York, where he graduated in 1897 with two diplomas, one in business and another in penmanship. Upon graduation, he decided to become a teacher of bookkeeping, commercial arithmetic, business correspondence, and penmanship (which was a crucial skill for accountants at the time).
In 1898, with a $50 loan, Harry Bentley started the co-educational Winsted Business School, the predecessor to Bentley University. Located on the third floor of the Opera Building, Winsted had only two professors: Harry, who taught bookkeeping, and his wife, Belle, who taught stenography. Despite the small size, Winsted’s reputation grew well and attracted many students, allowing it to move to a larger space. However, Harry Bentley was still not satisfied. When NYU announced America’s first university-level accounting program, he sold Winsted and moved his family to New York so he could enroll.
His graduation from NYU was not quite celebratory. Due to his lack of high school completion, the university did not award him his degree; instead, he received a diploma. In 1903, he co-founded Bentley, Laird & Moyer (BLM), a public accounting firm in Hartford, Connecticut, though it failed after four months. He then became the chief accountant for the Columbia Real Estate and Investment Company (CREIC) in 1904. By 1908, he had passed the New Jersey and Connecticut state CPA exams.
In 1910, Harry Bentley moved with his wife and two daughters to Boston to teach at Simmons College as an assistant professor of accounting. Two years later, he became the dean of the Boston YMCA's School of Commerce and Finance, where he served for four years before joining Boston University's College of Business Administration. After leaving Boston University in 1917, Harry Bentley founded the Bentley School of Accounting and Finance.
Bentley College was distinct in many ways. Unlike the leaders of Ivy League colleges at the time, Harry Bentley gladly accepted immigrant students. He also accepted a few African-American students into the program, though he warned them that they would probably not be employed as accountants because of racial discrimination in the business world. Many of his students tended to be poor, and he worried they would leave due to monetary problems. To counter this, he offered generous financial aid, often as long-term, interest-free loans, which was particularly helpful during the Great Depression.
Bentley’s retirement in 1953 took him to San Diego, California, where he lived with his wife for ten years before eventually moving back to Boston. He oversaw Bentley College’s move from Boston to Waltham and attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Harry Bentley passed away in 1967 at the age of 90, though his memory lives on at the university that bears his name.
Works Cited
Source: Harry Clark Bentley: A Pioneering Accountant and the Founder of Bentley University (1877-1967)
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