Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/380

 ‘Roscius Anglicanus,’ p. 45, which provoked the editor, Davies, to remark that Jevon must have been a contemptible buffoon. Langbaine describes him as a good actor, and specially notices his ‘activity.’



JEVONS, MARY ANNE (1795–1845), poetess, eldest daughter of [q. v.], was born at Liverpool in 1795, and was married on 23 Nov. 1825 to Thomas Jevons. She was the mother of William Stanley Jevons [q. v.] Her youth was spent in constant companionship with her father, a good deal of whose poetical talent she inherited. She contributed to ‘Poems for Youth, by a Family Circle,’ 1820–1, 2 parts (3rd edition 1841), and wrote ‘Poems by one of the Authors of “Poems for Youth,” &c.,’ 1821, 12mo, pp. 66. She edited ‘The Sacred Offering, a Poetical Annual,’ 1831–8, the contents of which were chiefly written by members of the Roscoe family. Her own contributions were in 1845 collected under the title of ‘Sonnets and other Poems, chiefly Devotional,’ 8vo, pp. x, 134. In person she was remarkably handsome, with very fascinating manners. She died in London on 13 Nov. 1845. 

JEVONS, WILLIAM STANLEY (1835–1882), economist and logician, was born in Alfred Street, Liverpool, on 1 Sept. 1835. His father, Thomas Jevons, had been brought up to the trade of nail-making in Staffordshire, where the family had been settled for several generations, but afterwards carried on business as an iron merchant in Liverpool. The elder Jevons is believed to have constructed the first iron boat that sailed on sea water, and was a lucid writer on legal and economical topics. His wife [see ], a unitarian like himself, was the eldest daughter of [q. v.] William Stanley was the ninth of eleven children. The family was united by strong affections. His elder sister (afterwards Mrs. John Hutton), on her mother's early death, supplied her place, and preserved the memorials of Jevons's earlier years. He received his early training at the Mechanics' Institute High School and at the private school of a Mr. Beckwith in Liverpool, and at the age of fifteen was sent to London to attend University College School, whence in October 1851 he proceeded to University College. In 1848 his father had failed in business, and he felt the necessity of serious exertion. Soon afterwards he went to live with his aunt, Mrs. Henry Roscoe, and studied chemistry with her son (now Sir Henry). Towards the close of 1853 he accepted the appointment of assayer to the new mint of Sydney in Australia. He spent two months in Paris to study assaying, and reached Sydney in October 1854. Two years before this he had begun to keep a journal, and his letters are full of interest. His skill in assaying work brought him in 1858 the offer of a lucrative partnership in the same line of business. He also worked hard at meteorology, sending to the ‘Empire’ newspaper, from May 1856 to June 1858, weekly weather reports, which were subsequently utilised by government. His interesting pamphlet, ‘Some Data concerning the Climate of Australia and New Zealand,’ was published in the following year. He wrote upon other topics in the ‘Empire,’ and was already taking interest in the study of political economy, and reading Mill's ‘Logic.’ He soon made up his mind to leave his post, though the salary was considerable (630l. per annum), in order to obtain a wider sphere of influence; and in the first instance resolved to devote himself to the moral sciences, besides becoming a good mathematician. At the beginning of 1859 he accordingly resigned his appointment, in order to become a student once more. He reached Liverpool in September, and soon afterwards attended lectures at University College, London, in the company of his younger brother, with whom and his sisters he lived in lodgings at Paddington for the ensuing four years. He found the classes dull, but heartily admired De Morgan as ‘an unfathomable fund of mathematics.’ He failed to gain the prize in the political economy class, but hoped to revenge himself by publishing a theory sounder than his examiner's. In November 1859 he published his ‘Remarks on the Australian Goldfields,’ and in 1861 contributed a number of articles to H. Watts's ‘Chemical Dictionary.’ In the same year and in 1862 he published articles on the ‘Spectrum’ and on cognate subjects in the ‘London Quarterly’ and other periodicals. In June 1862 he passed the M.A. examination of the university of London, gaining the gold medal in philosophy and political economy. He had for some time been intent upon the project of a ‘Statistical Atlas’ on a novel and comprehensive plan, and as an earnest of this he put forth in this year two elaborate curve-diagrams, showing the weekly accounts of the Bank of England and the price of the funds, and various other important commercial data from month to month since 1731. At the Cambridge meeting of the