Hi Ellen...
Strange timing. This is only the second time I've looked at Rootschat, and I stumbled on your message.
I'm a direct descendant of the Cavendishes and the Bennetts - my father was Charles Cavendish Bennett. I probably don't have more information than you do about relatives before the late 1800s (in fact, I probably have less), but here's some of what I'm finding. I just yesterday received a copy of the book "Louie Bennett" by Rosemary Cullen Owens. Louie was my great aunt, and a leader of the Irish suffragist movement. There's a little information in that book that helps me identify people, although not as much as I'd hoped.
James C Bennett (son of Charles) was James Cavendish Bennett. His mother had to be Charles Bennett's first wife, Elizabeth, whose last name I don't have, because James was born long before 1861. So Charles and Elizabeth gave their son the middle name of Cavendish before Charles married Emily Cavendish, which means something odd like the relationship you suggest must have been at work. I haven't seen the census data that you have.
Charles Bennett's father William Bennett was from "a ship-owning family of English merchants" who married an Irishwoman "Miss Rowan" and moved to Ireland in the late 18th century, according to the Owens book I cited above. William Bennett supposedly had 18 children by two wives. Then Charles Bennett had 13 children by 2 wives.
James Cavendish Bennett (I don't have his birth date, but he died in Dublin in 1918) had nine children who survived to adulthood. I have more information on that generation and younger.
Not sure how the Taylors interconnect.
I haven't answered your specific question (or lots of my own!) but I have some ideas on living relatives in Ireland and the U.S. who might have clues.
Charlie
