Horace Albert Bennett was born in Mornington in 1881 and commenced his working life as an apprentice in the tea industry in Adelaide with C. Woods & Sons and on returning to Melbourne he worked for John Connell as a Tea Merchant.

Horace commenced the operations of H.A. Bennett in 1918 as a Tea and Coffee broker, soon after he travelled to the Dutch East Indies who were then developing their tea estates in Java and Sumatra. He managed to obtain the agency of H.V.A. Amsterdam who had large tea holdings in Sumatra with famous estates such as Balim Binsan, which he held until 1941 on his appointment as the Commonwealth Tea & Coffee Controller.

Whilst conducting the operations of HAB, Horace persued his interest in swimming at Victorian and Australian levels. Whilst he was adept in all strokes, he excelled at backstroke and for 17 years was the Captain of the Melbourne Swimming Club. Whilst holding that position he was appointed General Manager of the Australian Olympic Team that competed in Antwerp in 1920. He became president of the VASA in 1922 and held that position until he resigned in 1952. In 1959 he was appointed the first life member of the Australian Swimming Union and was the first Australian to be appointed to the international swimming body : FINA.

As the Commonwealth Tea & Coffee Controller his task was to purchase Australia's total requirement of Tea and Coffee from 1942 to June 1955, the business of HAB was closed during his years as the Controller.

In 1955 the business re-opened under the incorporated name of H.A. Bennett & Sons and Horace and two of his sons Peter and Bill (who had just returned from Columbo where he was employed as a tea buyer for Heath & Company Ltd.) set out to build HAB into one of the largest Tea and Coffee importers in Australia.

In 1953 Horace was awarded the Queen's Medal for his services to the Tea & Coffee Trade as well as his involvement in swimming.

Horace Albert Bennett passed away in September 1960 at 79 years of age and the boys carried on the business until Peter moved out of the firm to set-up his own Tea Packing company, Bill is still active in the business and the third generation of the Bennett family : Scott is now a director in the business.