Born at Goudhurst, Kent on 13 March 1882, fifth child and third son of William Alfred Benians, a schoolmaster, and Elizabeth Ackland his wife, he was educated at Bethany House School, Goudhurst and at the London Hospital, and qualified in 1907. Though he took the Fellowship in 1913, after serving as prosector at the College, he made his career as a hospital pathologist. He was a pathological assistant at the London Hospital inoculation department and was then appointed to the Prince of Wales General Hospital and to the North Middlesex Hospital, becoming ultimately consulting pathologist. During the war of 1914-18 he was pathologist and director of laboratories to the Addington Park War Fever Hospital. Benians made numerous contributions to the specialist journals on questions of bacteriology, vaccine therapy, and immunity, and lectured on these subjects at the North-East London Postgraduate Medical School. He married in 1909 Amy Frances Rogers, who survived him with their three sons and a daughter. They lived for many years at Tonbridge, but moved to 38 Chandos Court, Southgate, N14, where he died on 1 January 1958, aged 75. Benians was a keen amateur artist, painting in both oil and water colour. Publications: Gram-positive and acid-fast properties of bacteria. *J Path Bact* 1912, 17, 199. Bacteriology of cerebrospinal fever. *Practitioner* 1915, 95, 653. Septicaemia and other fixation abscesses. *Brit J exper Path* 1921, 2, 276. A vasospastic factor in serum of case of Raynaud's disease with cold agglutination. *J lab clin Med* 1944, 29, 1074.