- He was awarded the Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 1916 King's Honours List for his services to drama.
- Cousin of actor Basil Rathbone.
- Directed 26 annual Shakespeare festivals at Stratford-on-Avon.
- A celebrated aspect of Benson's life and work was the training of new generations of actors. A touring company paying modest salaries inevitably suffered a constant loss of its leading players to stardom and better pay in the West End, and Benson's company had a continual influx and outflow of actors. In 1913 The Times printed a list of more than 90 "Old Bensonians" - eminent actors and actresses who "learnt their art under the inspiration of Mr Benson".
- He was awarded a civil list pension and retired to Kensington, London, where he died on 31 December 1939, aged 81. After a private funeral he was cremated at Golders Green crematorium. A memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 12 January 1940, led by the Bishop of London, was attended by large numbers of the theatrical profession, with readings and an address by Old Bensonians.
- In July 1881 Benson and his Oxford Agamemnon Society took the Imperial Theatre, London, for a single performance of Romeo and Juliet. The performance was not admired; The Stage found it "one of the very worst it has been our misfortune to witness", and commented that Benson's Romeo resembled George Grossmith's Bunthorne in Patience. Benson then studied with Hermann Vezin and was encouraged by Ellen Terry, who persuaded Henry Irving to take Benson on to play Paris in Romeo and Juliet at the Lyceum in 1882. Irving was unimpressed and did not extend the young actor's contract. Terry suggested that Benson should join a touring company where he could gain more experience and better parts than in London. He joined first Miss Alleyne's company, and then that of Walter Bentley, which performed Shakespeare and classic comedies in the north of England and Scotland.
- In 1880 he mounted a successful production of Aeschylus's Agamemnon, given in the original Greek; Benson played Clytemnestra. This was followed by Euripides's Alcestis the following year, in which Benson played Apollo.
- Benson made his last appearance on stage as Dr Caius in The Merry Wives of Windsor, at the Winter Garden, London on 26 December 1932 in a production by the Old Bensonian Oscar Asche.
- In 1911 Benson appeared in four films of Shakespeare plays, much abbreviated: Richard III, in the title role; Julius Caesar, in which he played Antony; The Taming of the Shrew as Petruchio; and Macbeth, in the title role.
- An injury caused by a bicyclist in March 1933 ended Benson's career.
- His thirty-year association with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and the annual Shakespeare Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon laid down foundations for the creation of the Royal Shakespeare Company after his death.
- In 1886 he married a member of his company, Constance Featherstonhaugh. They had two children, Eric William (1887-1916, killed at the battle of the Somme), and Brynhild Lucy (1888-1974).
- In 1871 Benson went to Winchester College, where a master inspired him with a love of Shakespeare. From there he went to New College, Oxford in 1878, where he distinguished himself as an athlete (winning the Inter-university three miles) and as an amateur actor.
- He founded his own company in 1883 and produced all but two of Shakespeare's plays.
- Benson's company toured widely, with few London seasons, and became a training ground for several generations of young performers, including Henry Ainley, Oscar Asche, Lilian Braithwaite, Isadora Duncan, Nigel Playfair, Nancy Price and Harcourt Williams.
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