First found in Oxfordshire, where a Peter de Bensinton was recorded in the Curia Regis Rolls for 1208. Henry de Benson was recorded in that same county in Oseney, in 1269. A family of the name was established from ancient times in the vicinity of Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire.

For political, religious, and economic reasons, thousands of English families boarded ships for Ireland, the Canadas, the America colonies, and many of smaller tropical colonies in the hope of finding better lives abroad. Although the passage on the cramped, dank ships caused many to arrive in the New World diseased and starving, those families that survived the trip often went on to make valuable contributions to those new societies to which they arrived. Early immigrants bearing the Bonson surname or a spelling variation of the name include : John Benson, Mary Benson and their two children, who arrived in Massachusetts in 1638; Dirck Benson, who came to New York in 1648; Cutbert Benson, who came to Virginia in 1655.

Motto Translated: If God be with us who can be against us?.

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