Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/355

  teaching at first excited against him at Chobham soon disappeared. He was placed on the commission of the peace and devoted much attention to abuses in the administration of the poor laws, the tendency of which he felt was to reduce the labouring class almost universally to pauperism. About 1824 he left Chobham for the chapelry of St. John's, Bedford Row, still retaining the former benefice. But a town charge dependent on pew-rents was not to his taste, and, resigning it at the end of two years, he returned to Chobham in 1826. Bishop C. J. Sumner, who was in full sympathy with Jerram's opinions, on succeeding to the see of Winchester made him a rural dean, and in April 1834 presented him to the lucrative rectory of Witney in Oxfordshire, which he held till his death, his son succeeding him at Chobham. His predecessor at Witney had been non-resident, and the parish was given over to dissent. During Jerram's incumbency the parish church was restored; district churches and schools were erected in two hamlets; Sunday trading was put down, and the parish was divided into districts for systematic visitation. He wrote in 1836 a pamphlet on the somewhat numerous secessions of evangelical clergymen to the ranks of dissent, and combated what he called ‘the Tractarian heresy.’ His health began to fail in 1844, and on Good Friday 1848 he preached his last sermon in Witney Church. He died 20 June 1853, and was buried at Witney. Jerram may be regarded as one of the very best representatives of the second generation of the evangelical school, both in its excellences and its defects. In 1798 he married Mary Stanger, daughter of a yeoman of Tydd St. Mary, Lincolnshire, by whom he had a large family. Two sons, James and Samuel, were in holy orders. The former, rector of Fleet, Lincolnshire, was his biographer.

Jerram published, besides separate sermons and magazine articles:
 * 1) ‘Scriptural Grounds for expecting the Restoration of the Jews,’ 1797, Norrisian essay.
 * 2) ‘Review of the Letters of an Universalist,’ 1802.
 * 3) ‘Considerations on the Impotency and Pernicious Tendency of the Administration of the Poor Laws,’ 1802.
 * 4) ‘Letters on the Atonement,’ 1804; republished, with additions, 1828.
 * 5) ‘Conversations on Infant Baptism,’ 1819, ‘a popular and satisfactory discussion of the subject,’ according to Bickersteth's ‘Christian Student.’
 * 6) ‘Tribute of Parental Affection,’ 1823.
 * 7) ‘Secession from the Church of England,’ 1836.

 JERROLD, DOUGLAS WILLIAM (1803–1857), man of letters, youngest son of Samuel Jerrold, an actor, by his second wife, a Miss Reid, was born in London, 3 Jan. 1803. He was brought up at first at Wilsby, near Cranbrook, in Kent. The family moved in 1807 to Sheerness, where the father had taken a lease of the theatre. On several occasions the boy was brought upon the stage when a child was needed in the ‘Stranger’ and other plays, but, although he acted for a short time in the ‘Painter of Ghent’ in 1836, and appeared as Master Stephen in Jonson's ‘Every Man in his Humour’ in 1845, he never contracted any real taste for acting. He learnt to read and write from one of the members of the company, and was always an ardent lover of books. Before he reached middle life he had taught himself Latin, French, and Italian, and was deeply read in English dramatic literature. Subsequently he was put to school with a Mr. Herbert in Sheerness, until in December 1813, through the influence of Captain Austen, he was sent to the guardship Namur off the Nore, as a midshipman in the royal navy. On board this ship he first became intimate with Clarkson Stanfield, then a foremast-man, with whom he got up theatricals on board. On 24 April 1815 he was transferred to the brig Ernest. This ship convoyed transports to Ostend on the eve of Waterloo, cruised to Heligoland and Cuxhaven, and brought back wounded soldiers from Belgium to Sheerness in July. She was then paid off, and on 21 Oct. Jerrold quitted the service, with a vivid memory of his experiences, which he afterwards turned to account in ‘Jack Runnymede,’ and a lifelong detestation of the cruelty of flogging with the ‘cat.’ He was always sailor-like in generosity and imprudence, energy and combativeness, enthusiastic sensibility and irritable temper.

His father, an old man, was now in difficulties. Sheerness after the peace was a bad place for a theatre, and he was compelled to remove in poverty to London in January 1816. The family lived in Broad Court, Bow Street, principally supported by the father's earnings on the stage and Douglas's wages as apprentice to a printer named Sidney in Northumberland Street, Strand. He continued to read and study, and to write occasional verses, which were first printed in ‘Arliss's Magazine.’ One of his first contributions to journalism was a notice of Weber's ‘Der Freischutz.’ ‘I understood nothing about it scientifically,’ he said, ‘but I wrote as I felt, and the notice was a success. It brought me many a commission from the paper to which I sent it’