Richard E. Bennett was born and raised in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada where he attended Sudbury High School. After studying one year at Brigham Young University he served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Texas from 1967-1969. He later graduated from BYU with a B.A. in English Literature and a master’s degree in American History. He obtained his Ph.D. from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. For twenty years he was Head of the Department of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba. There he and his wife, Patricia Dyer, raised a family of five children. In 1997 he was invited to join the faculty of the Dept. of Church History and Doctrine at BYU. He retired from BYU in 2021 to serve with his wife as mission president of the Mormon Trails Center in Omaha, Nebraska.

Professor Bennett has authored nine books and over seventy articles, primarily on LDS 19th century history. Some of his better-known works include Mormons at the Missouri, 1846-1852, We’ll Find the Place – The Mormon Exodus, 1846-1848; 1820 – Dawning of the Restoration, and Temples Rising: A Heritage of Sacrifice. He is currently working on a co-authored manuscript tentatively entitled Out Of Egypt: The Coming Forth of the Book of Abraham.