Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jellett, John Hewitt
JELLETT, JOHN HEWITT (1817–1888), provost of Trinity College, Dublin, was born at Cashel in Tipperary on 25 Dec. 1817, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, of which he became a fellow in 1840. He graduated B.A. 1838, M.A. 1843, B.D. 1866, and D.D. 1 March 1881. He had been admitted into priest's orders in 1846. In 1848 he was elected to the chair of natural philosophy, and in 1868 he received the appointment of commissioner of Irish national education. A year later the Royal Irish Academy elected him president. In 1870, on the death of Dr. Thomas Luby, he was co-opted by the senior fellows of Trinity College as a member of their board. Mr. Gladstone's government in February 1881 appointed Jellett provost of Trinity; in the same year he was awarded one of the royal medals of the Royal Society. After the disestablishment of the church of Ireland he took an active part in the deliberations of the general synod and in every work calculated to advance its interests. He was an able mathematician, and wrote ‘A Treatise of the Calculus of Variations’ in 1850, and ‘A Treatise on the Theory of Friction’ in 1872, and several papers on pure and applied mathematics, as well as articles in the ‘Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy,’ and some theological essays, sermons, and religious treatises, of which the principal were ‘An Examination of some of the Moral Difficulties of the Old Testament,’ 1867, and ‘The Efficacy of Prayer,’ 1878. He died at the provost's house, Trinity College, Dublin, on 19 Feb. 1888, and was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery on 23 Feb.
[Times, 21 Feb. 1888, p. 10, 24 Feb. p. 5; information kindly supplied by the provost of Trinity College, Dublin; Freeman's Journal, 20 Feb. 1888, p. 3, 24 Feb. p. 3; Illustrated London News, 7 May 1881, pp. 453, 454, with portrait; Graphic, 10 March 1888, pp. 233, 240, with portrait.]