Retirement and Death
Bennett retired to Britain in 1938, and, on June 12, 1941, became the first and only former Canadian Prime Minister to be elevated to the peerage as Viscount Bennett, of Mickleham in the County of Surrey and of Calgary and Hopewell in the Dominion of Canada.
He died after suffering a heart attack while taking a bath on June 26, 1947, at Mickleham. He was exactly one week shy of his 77th birthday. He is buried there in St. Michael's Churchyard, Mickleham. He is the only former Prime Minister not buried in Canada. Unmarried, Bennett was survived by nephews William Herridge, Jr., and Robert Coats and by brother Ronald V. Bennett. The viscountcy became extinct on his death.
Bennett was ranked #12 by a survey of Canadian historians out of the then 20 Prime Ministers of Canada through Jean Chrétien. The results of the survey were included in the book Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada's Leaders by J.L. Granatstein and Norman Hillmer.
Read more about this topic: R. B. Bennett
Famous quotes containing the words retirement and, retirement and/or death:
“Adultery itself in its principle is many times nothing but a curious inquisition after, and envy of another man’s enclosed pleasures: and there have been many who refused fairer objects that they might ravish an enclosed woman from her retirement and single possessor.”
—Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)
“Douglas. Now remains a sweet reversion—
We may boldly spend, upon the hope
Of what is to come in.
A comfort of retirement lives in this.
Hotspur. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has wished, drawing the sum of one’s life—all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)