George Benson was born in 1889, son of T D Benson, sometime Treasurer of the Independent Labour Party. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and became a clerk in an estate office, living in Disley, Cheshire.

When conscription came in WW1 he applied to the Disley Military Service Tribunal for exemption as a conscientious objector, but in a hearing on 29 February 1916 he was allowed only exemption from combatant service, meaning he was to be called up into the Non-Combatant Corps, guaranteed not to use or even handle weapons, but nevertheless part of the Army. On appeal to the Cheshire County Tribunal, at Stockport, the Military Representative cross-appealed, resulting in George being refused any exemption. George, in turn, refused to accept this, and ignored a notice to report for training, leading to arrest by a civilian police constable, and, after being held in cells at Walkden and Old Trafford, he was brought before Manchester Magistrates Court on 12 September 1916, where he was fined £2 and handed over to a military escort.

Taken to Chester barracks to be enlisted in the 3rd Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, George refused to obey orders such as to put on a uniform, and was held in the guardroom there, and also in guardrooms at Bidston and Gamlin barracks, Birkenhead, where,  along with fellow Cheshire COs, George Beardsworth and Charles Dukes, he was brutally treated, leading to Parliamentary Questions on 31 October and 4 December 1916. He was court-martialled at Ashton Barracks, Birkenhead, on 13 October 1916 and sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour, but his transfer to Wormwood Scrubs Prison, London, was delayed to enable him to give evidence at the court-martial of the perpetrators of brutality. At Wormwood Scrubs, on 10 November 1916, he appeared before the Central Tribunal sitting in the prison, and was found a “genuine” CO after all. He was offered, and he accepted, the Home Office Scheme, and was transferred to Wakefield Work Centre. He was probably transferred to another Work Centre before final release in April 1919, when the Home Office Scheme closed,

George continued his interest in politics, being elected MP for Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in 1929, and, although he lost the seat in 1931, he regained it in 1935 and continued until 1964, when he stood down. He never held government office, but was a member of the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons for many years, rewarded with a knighthood. Appropriately for an ex-prisoner, he was involved in the Howard League for Penal Reform, serving as Chair.