John Jebb (1736–1786) was an English

divine Divinity (from Latin ) refers to the quality, presence, or nature of that which is divine—a term that, before the rise of monotheism, evoked a broad and dynamic field of sacred power. In the ancient world, divinity was not limited to a singl ...

, 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. It ...

, 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 the Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area and the second largest settlement in Nottinghamshire (following the city ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

: among his Irish cousins was John Jebb,

Bishop of Limerick The Bishop of Limerick is an Episcopal polity, episcopal title which takes its name after the city of Limerick in the Province of Munster, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the Roman Catholic Church, Catholic Church it still continues as a sepa ...

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 Ben ...

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

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in northeastern Essex, England. It is the second-largest settlement in the county, with a population of 130,245 at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census. The demonym is ''Colcestrian''. Colchester occupies the ...

, 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 The right to resist is a nearly universally acknowledged human right, although its scope and content are controversial. The right to resist, depending on how it is defined, can take the form of civil disobedience or armed resistance against a t ...

being evicted from his lodgings. John Jebb was educated at

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Peterhouse has around 300 undergraduate and 175 graduate stud ...

, 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 Mathematical Tripos competition. The highest-scoring student is the Senior Wrangler, the second highest is the Second Wrangler, and so on ...

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 name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie and Ana. Anne is sometimes used as a male name in ...

warmly supported the movement of 1771 for abolishing university and clerical subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. In his lectures on the

Greek New Testament Greek New Testament refers to the New Testament in Koine Greek. It may also refer to the following texts: * ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' * ''Textus Receptus The (Latin for 'received text') is the succession of printed Greek New Testament texts ...

he is said to have expressed

Socinian Socinianism ( ) is a Nontrinitarian Christian belief system developed and co-founded during the Protestant Reformation by the Italian Renaissance humanists and theologians Lelio Sozzini and Fausto Sozzini, uncle and nephew, respectively. I ...

views. In 1775 he resigned his

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

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

St Andrews St Andrews (; ; , pronounced ʰʲɪʎˈrˠiː.ɪɲ 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 fourth-largest settleme ...

. 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 churchman 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 Carl ...

and Francis Blackburne, he was an advocate of

soul sleep Christian mortalism is the Christian belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal and may include the belief that the soul is "sleeping" after death until the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment, a time known as the intermedi ...

. 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 English reformers