Hastings Charles Dent was born on July 23, 1855, in Kensington, London, England.

He was a British civil engineer and collector of entomological and botanical specimens. He was educated in private schools before entering Owens College, Manchester. His career in engineering began at the Royal School of Engineering where he became a tutor and later an examiner. As a qualified civil engineer, he worked laying the first tramway in Manchester before spending 1884-1885 in Minas Gerais, Brazil, where he was involved in surveying rail lines. Here Dent made many collections, including a small but very interesting herbarium, and published “A Year in Brazil” (1886). The same year he travelled around the world with the Earl of Harrowby, visiting British Columbia (Vancouver Island), the Ming Tombs of Beijing, Japan, and Java, and amassed a particularly impressive collection of Lepidoptera and Coleoptera specimens. In 1888, he settled on a farm in Godstone, Surrey. He was a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London (1885), the Entomological Society, the Zoological Society, and the Royal Geographical Society.

He died on March 6, 1909, in Godstone, Surrey, England.