Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jenkes, Henry
JENKES, HENRY (d. 1697), Gresham professor of rhetoric, descended from a Prussian family, was a native of England, and received his early education at King's College, Aberdeen, where he was admitted in 1642, and graduated M.A. in 1646 (Fasti Aberdonenses, Spalding Club, pp. 466, 512). On 21 March 1646 he was admitted a member of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and in 1649 he was incorporated M.A. in that university. He was elected a fellow of Caius College, Cambridge, in the time of the civil war. On the occasion of the opening of the Sheldonian Theatre he was incorporated M.A. at Oxford, 13 July 1669. He was elected professor of rhetoric in Gresham College, London, on 21 Oct. 1670, in succession to Dr. William Croone [q. v.] He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 30 Nov. 1674, and he resigned his professorship on 2 Oct. 1676. After this he resided wholly at Cambridge, living by his fellowship at Caius College. Dying there at the end of August 1697, he was buried on 1 Sept. in the church of St. Michael, in which parish the college is situated. He corresponded with several learned men in Holland.
His works are: 1. ‘The Christian Tutor, or a Free and Rational Discourse of the Sovereign Good and Happiness of Man,’ London, 1683, 8vo. 2. ‘De Natura et Constitutione Ethicæ, præsertim Christianæ, ejusque Usu et Studio,’ prefixed to ‘Stephani Curcellæi Synopsis ethices,’ London, 1684; Cambridge, 1702. 3. ‘The Christian Dial.’ 4. ‘Rationale Biblicum,’ manuscript left ready for the press at the time of his death.
[Addit. MS. 5873, f. 22; Ward's Gresham Professors, p. 327, with the author's manuscript notes; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 311; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), iii. 626.]