Benjamin Jowett (,Letter of C. S. Lewis from Keble College, July 22, 1917: "Jowett (here usually pronounced to rhyme with 'poet')" modern variant ;"Jowett". Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 10th Edition, 2009. 15 April 1817 – 1 October 1893) was an English writer, classical scholar, and Anglican deacon. Additionally, he was an administrative reformer in the University of Oxford, theologian, Anglican cleric, and translator of Plato and Thucydides.Freeman, E.A. (1882). "Jowett's Thucydides". The Fortnightly Review. Vol. XXXIX, pp. 273–292. He was master of Balliol College, Oxford.
Early life and education Jowett was born in Camberwell, London, the third of nine children.Balliol College Archives & Manuscripts His father was a furrier originally from a Yorkshire family that, for three generations, had been supporters of the Evangelical movement in the Church of England, and an author of a metrical translation of the Old Testament Psalms. His mother, Isabella Langhorne (1790–1869), was related to John Langhorne, the poet and translator of Plutarch. At the age of 12, Jowett was placed on the foundation of St Paul's School (then located in St Paul's Churchyard) where he soon gained a reputation as a precocious classical scholar.
At the age of 18, Jowett was awarded an open scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, where he remained for the rest of his life. He began his studies in 1836, and was quickly recognised as one of the leading Oxford dons of his generation, made a Fellow while still an undergraduate in 1838; he graduated with first-class honours in 1839. This was at the height of the Oxford Tractarian movement: through the friendship of W. G. Ward, he was drawn for a time in the direction of High Anglicanism; but a stronger and more lasting influence was that of the Arnold school, represented by A. P. Stanley. The controversy caused Jowett to withdraw from High Table at college to lodgings in Broad Street.
Heretical controversialist
As early as 1839, Stanley had joined with Archibald Campbell Tait, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, in advocating certain university reforms. From 1846 onwards, Jowett threw himself into this movement, which in 1848 became general amongst the younger and more thoughtful Fellows, until it took effect in the commission of 1850 and the Oxford University Act 1854. Jowett then concentrated on theology: he spent the summers of 1845 and 1846 in Germany with Stanley, and became an eager student of German criticism and speculation. His views became more than radical, they were heretical, which severely curtailed prospects for advancement within the walls of the conformity of Anglican Oxford. Among the writings of that period he was most impressed by those of F. C. Baur. But he never ceased to exercise an independent judgement, and his work on St Paul, which appeared in 1855, was the result of much original reflection and inquiry.
Jowett found a friend and correspondent in Florence Nightingale, but whether there was any romantic attachment is unclear. It has been suggested that he belatedly proposed marriage, but was rejected, and lived the latter part of his life in regret that he never knew matrimonial bliss. Jowett's didactic and pedagogic nature tended him towards instruction of her complicated character accusing her of exaggeration, an emotional intensity occasioned by hysteria. He was a father figure, paternalistic towards a deeply conservative woman, religious, self-censoring and strict in her conduct. Another educational reform, the opening of the Indian Civil Service to competition, took place at the same time, and Jowett was one of the commission. He had two brothers, William and Alfred who had served and died in India, and he never ceased to take a deep and practical interest in Indian affairs. After the Second Royal Commission in May 1859 he called Nightingale "the Governess of Governors of India" for her robust dealings with the poor conditions in Calcutta "the natives themselves ... educated to cleanliness & health by the enforcement of sanitary regulations in the large towns."Jowett Letters, p. 163, n3. When an old man he visited Claydons, where Margaret Verney donated him a print portrait of Nightingale which he later bequested in his will to Somerville College. A. Sorabji, an Indian writer, was a student barrister at Somerville College in 1890s, when the master of Balliol, pointing to the picture declared her love for him: the story was never confirmed.see Bostridge's narrative, arguments and quoting of Sorabji, India Calling, (1934), p. 32; Cook, Life of Florence Nightingale contradicted the story that he was ever good for her. (1971) In another story entirely Margot Tennant later wife of Henry Asquith, befriended Jowett, only to learn that he had had a "violent ... very violent" relationship with Nightingale. Jowett was an éminence grise of liberal theology but could be somewhat chaotic in his recollections.
Oxford career
Jowett was appointed to the Regius Professorship of Greek in autumn 1855. He had been a tutor of Balliol and an Anglican cleric since 1842 and had devoted himself to the work of tuition: his pupils became his friends for life. He discerned their capabilities and taught them to know themselves. This made him a reputation as "the great tutor".
A great disappointment, his repulse for the mastership of Balliol, also in 1854, appears to have roused him into the completion of his book on The Epistles of St Paul. This work, described by one of his friends as "a miracle of boldness", is full of originality and suggestiveness, but its publication awakened against him a storm of theological opposition from the Evangelicals, which followed him more or less through life. Instead of yielding to this, he joined with Henry Bristow Wilson and Rowland Williams, who had been similarly attacked, in the production of the volume known as Essays and Reviews. This appeared in 1860 and gave rise to a strong outbreak of criticism. Jowett's loyalty to those who were prosecuted on this account was no less characteristic than his persistent silence while the augmentation of his salary as Greek professor was withheld. This persecution was continued until 1865, when E. A. Freeman and Charles Elton discovered by historical research that a breach of the conditions of the professorship had occurred, and Christ Church, Oxford, raised the endowment from £40 a year to £500. Jowett was one of the recipients of Nightingale's three volume work Suggestions for Thought for proof-reading and criticism. In the third volume of Essays and Reviews he contributed On the Interpretation of Scripture in which he attempted to reconcile her assertion that religion was law and could be unified with science. Her radical thoughts on women's place in the home, and his departure from liberal Anglican theology helped to block for a decade his career advancement to the mastership of Balliol. By 1860, he was already Regius Professor of Greek and a Fellow of Balliol, but an increase in his stipend was withheld. While the work gained fulsome praise from philosopher-politician John Stuart Mill, it profoundly shook the more traditional establishment's fervent belief that the working-classes would continue to worship in parish churches. Recognition that this was no longer so, was just one of the theological departures. In October 1862 he was invited to Oak Hill Park to offer Nightingale the sacrament. Accepting the prospect with relish, he nonetheless consulted with Archbishop Tait for permission. Many of his letters to her and Mrs Bracebridge have survived; their religion was tinged with a mutual respect for their shared common interests and intellectual gifts. Also included is an unflattering description of a middle-aged man.
Height of intellectual powers
Meanwhile, Jowett's influence at Oxford had steadily increased; he had his favourites. It culminated when the country clergy, provoked by the final acquittal of the essayists, had voted in convocation against the endowment of the Greek chair. Jowett's pupils, who were now drawn from the university at large, supported him with enthusiasm. He made friends with the Freemantles (related to Gladstone's minister, Grant Duff), and the Verneys at Claydons. On holiday in Derbyshire he would write to them and Nightingale, describing his findings at Lea Hurst in 1864. One historian has identified his relations with her as being most intense between 1863 and 1866: in April 1864, he had advised Florence Nightingale to prevent Garibaldi, her world-famous guest, from stirring up trouble in Italy. This coincided with a big philosophical argument in which they were poles apart: there were three major pieces of sanitary legislation, the Contagious Diseases Acts, which in 1870 came under fire from Josephine Butler, a feminist and social reformer, who wished their repeal. The rational theologian in Jowett warned Nightingale to ignore those "on the wrong tack".Jowett to Nightingale, 30 Jan 1870, Letters, p. 184 Rising incidents of venereal disease posed a moral question about whether to regulate prostitution, when men still might die from the infection. Policing of the health conditions became a case for which women's rights campaigners demanded repeal, and they launched a vociferous attack in the press on Jowett, among others. He was a compassionate man, visiting the selfless Hilary Bonham Carter (dying from cancer) in May 1865, administering his own brand of prayer and kindness.Jowett Letters, p. 38 He was a staunch critic of the Poor Laws that condemned the poor, sick, and vulnerable to appalling degradation, leaving people to starve. In London alone in 1866 there were 21,500 patients with no trained nurses. But his influence could be profound. In 1874, he criticised Nightingale's impending Report of Land Tenure in India to the extent that it was never published, because she "could lose influence".
In the midst of other labours, Jowett had been quietly exerting his influence so as to conciliate all shades of liberal opinion, and bring them to bear upon the abolition of the theological test, which was still required for the M.A. and other degrees, as well as for university and college offices. He spoke upon this question at an important meeting in London on 10 June 1864, which laid the ground for the Universities Tests Act 1871. Directly after, as master of Balliol College, he made the college "a sort of heaven on earth".Jowett Letters, xxvi-xxvii The liberal reforms to college commenced radical scientific enquiries into the nature of man's existence, questioning on the basis of empirical data the meaning of Christianity and its very existence. The shock waves reverberated through the liberal establishment, into the founding of the Labour Party and the New Liberalism of the Great War.
In connection with the Greek professorship, Jowett had undertaken a work on Plato which grew into a complete translation of the Dialogues with introductory essays, for which Florence Nightingale's criticism was gratefully received. At this he laboured in vacation time for at least ten years. He argued that platonic love between men was devoid of sexual activity, though Walter Pater would later disagree. He showed no interest in offering his own opinion on God or theology in his translations, in several editions, of Plato's works. The educated middle-classes were looking for an answer to how Plato could be relevant to Victorians. But his interest in theology had not abated, and his thoughts found an outlet in occasional preaching. The university pulpit, indeed, was closed to him, but several congregations in London delighted in his sermons, and from 1866 until the year of his death he preached annually in Westminster Abbey, where Stanley had become Dean in 1863. Three volumes of selected sermons were published posthumously. The years 1865–70 were occupied with assiduous teaching and writing.