Edward H. Bennett was born in England and trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1903 he came to Chicago to work in Daniel H. Burnham's office, where he worked on the U.S. Military Academy competition and city plans for San Francisco and Chicago. In private practice, Bennett developed plans for the cities of Brooklyn, Cedar Rapids, Detroit, Minneapolis, Ottawa, Portland (OR), and Washington, D.C. He served as Consulting Architect to the Chicago Plan Commission from 1913 to 1930. Virtually all phases of Bennett's professional career in the U.S. are documented (in varying degrees of completeness) with correspondence, clippings, reports, and photographs.