1922 The Last Post
	Football being brought to a halt mid-quarter is unusual, and with a couple of exceptions like lights going out or sprinklers coming on, the interruptions have usually been predictable and linked to Someone Or Other booting his 100th goal for the season. But for a funeral ... ???

Outside the ground, the State Funeral procession of Lieutenant James Mallett Bennett on its way to St. Kilda Cemetery from Parliament House had come to rest.

Players running back to their positions at the Junction Oval stopped as the sombre notes of the Dead March drifted across the oval from the R.A.A.F. Band accompanying the procession, and the crowd of 25,000 stood bare-headed as the bugler sounded plaintive notes of The Last Post.   

The only other sound was the drone of four Air Force planes that a formation in the shape of a crown overhead. Press reports noted a hush for a few moments as the bugler marched off and that many of the obervers were visibly moved by the tribute before the full-throated roar of the crowd resumed, Essendon eventually winning 15.7(97) to 13.11(89).

Bennett, born in St. Kilda and a well-known resident and supporter of the club, had been killed along with his pilot Sir Ross Smith on April 13 in an air crash at Brooklands, England during a trial flight of a Vickers Viking amphibian plane being prepared for an attempt at the first round-the-world flight with Smith's brother, Keith.

Keith Smith was also scheduled to have been on the trial flight after the Vickers test crew had passed the aircraft (somewhat revolutionary in that it was a "pusher", with the propellers at the rear of the four engines), but his train from London was delayed by fog and Ross Smith and Bennett took to air without him, believing he had missed the train.   Keith arrived a few minutes afterward and watched in horror as the aircraft plummeted into the ground.

The fascination with the various long distance flight attempts was so great that crowds described as "four or five deep" lined Bourke and Swanston Streets as Bennett's  funeral cortege passed, with The Argus devoting two full columns to the events.

Bennett, along with the Smith brothers (from South Australia) and another Australian engineer, Sergeant Walter Shiers of New South Wales won fame by becoming the first crew to fly from London to Australia, collecting in their converted Vickers Vimy World War One bomber a £10,000 prize offered by the Australian Government in 1919, a source of immense national pride as they beat home crews from several other countries.

There are several other examples of tributes to servicemen who gave their lives for their country, but Bennett ranks a mention as it appears to have been the only one that actually interrupted play!

That he was also me dear old mum's cousin also helps his cause for inclusion in our archives! 

James Mallett Bennett was born in Prahran in 1894, the only son (he had three sisters) of James Thomas and Henrietta Augusta Bennett  (nee McKendrick) who were married in South Australia in 1888.

Grace Coventry Membrey (nee Bennett) was born in New Zealand in 1911 of Australian parents, William Bennet (brother of James senior) and Grace Paulin. 

Whether it remains today is uncertain, but there was a memorial to Lieutenant James Bennett erected in the Catani Gardens on the St. Kilda foreshore.