published separately in 1770 and 1771 respectively. Angus Macaulay in his ‘History of Claybrook,’ 1791, says that Jenner ‘had a fine taste for music, and his society was much courted by amateurs of that art,’ and according to Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes’ he was ‘a good singer of catches and performer at concerts.’ He composed and published a song entitled ‘The Syren,’ and in his novel ‘The Placid Man,’ and other of his writings, showed much knowledge of music and musical literature.
[Angus Macaulay's History of Claybrook; Nichols's Lit. Anecd.; Burke's Landed Gentry; family papers and traditions.]
JENNER, DAVID (d. 1691), divine, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1657–8. Afterwards he became a fellow of Sidney Sussex College, and took the degree of M.A. by royal mandate in 1662, and that of B.D., also by royal mandate, in 1668. He was installed in the prebend of Netherbury in the cathedral church of Salisbury 28 June 1676, and was instituted on 15 Oct. 1678 to the rectory of Great Warley, Essex, which he resigned in or about October 1687. He was likewise chaplain to the king. He died in 1691.
He published, besides two separate sermons (1676 and 1680):
- ‘Bifrons, or a new Discovery of Treason under the Fair Face and Mask of Religion, and of Liberty of Conscience,’ London, 1683–4, 4to; a reply to Dr. Daniel Whitby's ‘Protestant Reconciler,’ 1683.
- ‘The Prerogative of Primogeniture: shewing that the right of Succession to an Hereditary Crown depends not upon Grace, Religion, &c., but onely upon Birth-Right and Primogeniture; and that the Chief Cause of all, or most, Rebellions in Christendom, is a Fanatical Belief that Temporal Dominion is founded in Grace,’ London, 1685; dedicated to James, duke of York.
[Information from the Rev. H. R. Luard, D.D.; Addit. MS. 5873, f. 8; Bodleian Cat.; Cantabrigienses Graduati, 1787, p. 215; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), ii. 660; Newcourt's Repertorium, ii. 641; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 675.]
JENNER, EDWARD, M.D. (1749–1823), discoverer of vaccination, was born on 17 May 1749 at Berkeley, Gloucestershire, of which place his father, Stephen Jenner, was vicar. His mother's maiden name was Head, and her father had also been vicar of Berkeley. He had two brothers, both older than himself, and three sisters. His father died when he was five, and his education was directed by his eldest brother, Stephen. He was sent when eight years old to the school of a clergyman named Clissold at Wotton-under-Edge, and afterwards to that of Dr. Washbourn at Cirencester. Fossils are abundant in the neighbourhood, and he collected them as well as other objects of natural history. He was next apprenticed to Daniel Ludlow of Sodbury, a surgeon, and in 1770 went to London as a pupil resident in the house of John Hunter [q. v.] Here he received his most important education, and during the two years of his stay became imbued with the spirit of scientific investigation which animated his illustrious master. Their natural tastes were similar, they became friends for life, and constantly corresponded. On Hunter's recommendation Jenner was employed by Sir Joseph Banks to prepare some of the specimens brought home in 1771 from Cook's voyage. His professional studies were pursued at St. George's Hospital. In 1773 he returned to practise in Berkeley, living with his eldest brother, and was soon successful. He used to ride to see his patients wearing a blue coat and top-boots with silver spurs, and was careful of his personal appearance (Gardner's description to Dr. Baron). In the intervals of practice he made botanical and ornithological observations, collected fossils, played on the flute and the violin, and wrote occasional poems, of which the best is an ‘Address to a Robin.’
Hunter continually stimulated Jenner to make observations on the temperature of animals, on eels and many other subjects, and asked him to forward salmon-spawn, porpoises, cuckoos, and fossils (letters Hunter to Jenner). He assisted in forming a medical society which met at the Fleece Inn, Rodborough, read papers on medical subjects, and dined afterwards. At these meetings he read memoirs on angina pectoris, ophthalmia, and valvular disease of the heart, and sometimes made remarks on cow-pox, which already occupied his attention. He also belonged to another society of the same kind which met at the Ship Inn at Alveston, near Bristol. In 1787 he wrote a paper on the ‘Natural History of the Cuckoo,’ published in 1788 in the ‘Philosophical Transactions.’ The peculiarities of the cuckoo's habits are ably discussed, but the account of the cuckoo removing the young hedge-sparrows is clearly not the result of Jenner's own observation, and Waterton (Essay on the Jay) has demonstrated its absurdity. The explanation appears to be that Jenner employed a boy, his nephew Henry, to make these observations, who, too indolent to watch, gave an imaginary report. In the following year (1788) he was elected F.R.S. On 6 March 1788 he was married to Catharine Kingscote, and on 24 Jan. 1789 his eldest son, Edward,
