Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jowett, Joseph
JOWETT, JOSEPH, LL.D. (1752–1813), professor of civil law, was son of Henry Jowett of Leeds. He was educated at a school in that town, and admitted as a sizar at Trinity College, Cambridge, 24 June 1769, being then seventeen. He matriculated on 8 July 1769. In January 1773 he migrated to Trinity Hall, at the instance of Dr. Samuel Hallifax [q. v.], then regius professor of civil law, who offered him the post of assistant-tutor, with the prospect of a fellowship, and the reversion of the tutorship on the first vacancy. Jowett proceeded LL.B. in 1775, and LL.D. in 1780. In the former year he was elected fellow of Trinity Hall and principal tutor. In 1782 he was appointed regius professor of civil law, probably through the influence of Dr. Hallifax, who had been made bishop of Gloucester. He delivered lectures each term, and discharged all the duties of his office with ability and assiduity. His lectures are said to have been popular, and his comparison of the Roman and English law is specially commended. Jowett was principal tutor of Trinity Hall from 1775 to 1795, when he accepted the vicarage of Wethersfield in Essex, where he resided during the long vacations. He held strict evangelical opinions, which were unpopular in the university; but his sincerity and his high moral character gained for him general respect and much influence. His most intimate friend was Dr. Milner, president of Queens', with whom he never failed to pass two evenings alone each week. To Dr. Milner's influence may be ascribed the part he took in the refusal of Trinity Hall to elect Mr. (afterwards Archdeacon) Wrangham to a fellowship. Trinity Hall was in those days described as ‘a fief of Queens'.’ Wrangham is believed to have written the epigram on the garden which Jowett laid out in the angle between the two divisions of the east front of his college:
A little garden little Jowett made,
And fenced it with a little palisade.
But when this little garden made a little talk
He changed it to a little gravel-walk.
If you would know the mind of little Jowett,
This little garden don't a little show it.
Jowett died suddenly at Trinity Hall, 13 Nov., and was buried in the college chapel, 18 Nov. 1813.
[Obituary notice by Dr. Milner in the Christian Observer for 1813, pp. 820–4; Milner's Life, pp. 581–9; Simeon's Life, p. 375; Cambridge Chronicle, 19 Nov. 1813; Cambridge Calendar; Gunning's Reminiscences, ed. 1855, ii. 12–34; Admission Books of Trinity College; Archit. History of the Univ. and Colleges of Cambr. ed. Willis and Clark, i. 228.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.170
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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