John Jebb (1736–1786) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

divine Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.divine< ...

, medical doctor, and religious and political reformer.

Life

Jebb was the son of John Jebb,

Dean of Cashel The Dean of Cashel is the head of the Chapter of the Cathedral Church of St John the Baptist and St Patrick's Rock, Cashel, one of the Church of Ireland cathedrals of the united Diocese of Cashel, Ferns and Ossory. The Deanery is vacant. ...

, a member of the Irish branch of a distinguished family which came originally from

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market to ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The trad ...

: among his Irish cousins was John Jebb,

Bishop of Limerick The Bishop of Limerick is an episcopal title which takes its name after the city of Limerick in the Province of Munster, Ireland. In the Roman Catholic Church it still continues as a separate title, but in the Church of Ireland it has been un ...

and the bishop's brother Richard Jebb, judge of the

Court of King's Bench (Ireland) The Court of King's Bench (of Queen's Bench when the sovereign was female, and formerly of Chief Place or Chief Pleas) was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror of the Court of King's Bench in England. The King's Be ...

. His mother was Anne Gansel, daughter of David Gansel of Donnyland House,

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...

, and sister of Lieutenant General William Gansel, who was noted as the protagonist in ''Gansel's case'' (1774), on whether a lodger had a legal right to resist being evicted from his lodgings. John Jebb was educated at

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...

, where he was elected fellow in 1761, having previously been

Second Wrangler At the University of Cambridge in England, a "Wrangler" is a student who gains first-class honours in the final year of the university's degree in mathematics. The highest-scoring student is the Senior Wrangler, the second highest is the Se ...

at Cambridge in 1757. He was a man of independent judgement, and he and his wife

Ann Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie. Anne is sometimes used as a male name in th ...

warmly supported the movement of 1771 for abolishing university and clerical subscription to the

Thirty-nine Articles The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (commonly abbreviated as the Thirty-nine Articles or the XXXIX Articles) are the historically defining statements of doctrines and practices of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the ...

. In his lectures on the

Greek Testament (''The New Testament in Greek'') is a critical edition of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, forming the basis of most modern Bible translations and biblical criticism. It is also known as the Nestle–Aland edition after its mo ...

he is said to have expressed Socinian views. In 1775 he resigned his

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include ...

church livings, and two years afterwards graduated M.D. at

St Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fourt ...

. He practised medicine in London and was elected a fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1779. He and Ann continued to be involved in political reform.

Views

Edmund Law Edmund Law (6 June 1703 – 14 August 1787) was a priest in the Church of England. He served as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, as Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy in the University of Cambridge from 1764 to 1769, and as bishop of Carlis ...

and

Francis Blackburne Francis Blackburne PC (Ire) KS (11 November 1782 – 17 September 1867) was an Irish judge and eventually became Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Background Born at Great Footstown in County Meath, he was the son of Richard Blackburne of Great Foot ...

, he was an advocate of soul sleep. Jebb was a keen supporter of the American Revolution. He co-founded the Society for Constitutional Information in London in 1780, and was a leading figure in the early 1780s Association movement which pioneered the campaign for parliamentary reform that was carried on by the nineteenth-century Chartists.

Notes

References

* *Gascoigne, John. �
Jebb, John (1736–1786)
” ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. October 2005. 7 May 2007. *Page, Anthony. ''John Jebb and the Enlightenment Origins of British Radicalism''. Praeger Publishers, 2003.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jebb, John 1736 births 1786 deaths Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge Alumni of the University of St Andrews Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge 18th-century English Anglican priests Fellows of the Royal Society Second Wranglers British reformers