Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jewitt, Arthur
JEWITT, ARTHUR (1772–1852), topographer, eldest son of Arthur Jewitt, by Mary, daughter of Jonathan Priestley of Dronfield, was born at Sheffield on 7 March 1772, and at the age of fourteen was bound apprentice to his father, a cutler. At the expiration of his apprenticeship on his twenty-first birthday, 7 March 1793, he married Martha, daughter of Thomas Sheldon of Crooke's Moor, Sheffield. He had read largely from youth, and now opened a private school. In 1794 he became master of a school at Chesterfield, and after several removals and changes was master of the Kimberworth school from 1814 to 1818, when he retired from educational work and removed to Duffield, near Derby. There he remained until 1838, when he joined some of his family at Headington, near Oxford. He died at Headington on his birthday, 7 March 1852. His wife died at Duffield in November 1835. Two of his seven sons, Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt and Thomas Orlando Sheldon Jewitt, are separately noticed.
Jewitt was well known by his topographical works. ‘The History of Lincolnshire’ appeared in 1810, and ‘The History of Buxton’ in 1811. In July 1817 he commenced ‘The Northern Star, or Yorkshire Magazine,’ a monthly register of arts, biography, statistics, manufactures, &c., which ran to three volumes, 1817–18. On 1 Jan. 1818 he brought out the first number of ‘The Sylph, or Lady's Magazine for Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and the adjoining Counties.’ ‘The Lincoln and Lincolnshire Cabinet and Annual Intelligencer’ appeared at Lincoln during 1827–9. His ‘Matlock Companion,’ 1835, and ‘Derbyshire Gems’ were very popular. His ‘Handbook of Practical Perspective,’ 1840, and his ‘Handbook of Geometry,’ 1842, were adopted by the committee of council on education. He contributed mathematical papers to the ‘British Diary’ and to the ‘Lady's’ and the ‘Gentleman's’ diaries, and was a writer for the ‘Penny Magazine,’ and for Britton and Brayley's ‘Graphic and Historical Illustrator.’
[William Smith's Old Yorkshire, 1883, pp. 147–51, with portrait; Gent. Mag. May 1852, p. 524.]