Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Janeway, John
JANEWAY, JOHN (1633–1657), puritan, second son of William Janeway, and elder brother of James Janeway [q. v.], was born on 27 Oct. (baptised 4 Dec.) 1633 at Lilley, Hertfordshire, where his father was curate (1628–38). He was a precocious scholar. His father taught him Latin, and in 1644 he became a scholar at St. Paul's School, London, under John Langley, and read Hebrew at the age of eleven (Gardiner, Reg. St. Paul's School, p. 43). In 1645 he read mathematics, first at Aspenden, Hertfordshire, of which his father had become curate, afterwards in the house of ‘a person of quality’ in London. In 1646, after passing a brilliant examination, he was elected a foundation scholar at Eton. He spent three months at Oxford for mathematical tuition under Seth Ward [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Salisbury, returning to Eton with the repute of a mathematical and astronomical genius. In 1650 he was elected first scholar of that year at King's College, Cambridge, his elder brother William being elected sixth; he, however, changed places with his brother (Harwood, Alumni Eton. p. 247). He was elected fellow of his college in 1654.
Janeway's religious impressions date from 1652, when he came under the influence of a puritan fellow-student. From this time he devoted himself to the fostering of evangelical piety, especially among his own relatives. He left Cambridge in consequence of the illness of his father, who had been rector of Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire (1644–1646), and was now rector of Kelshall, Hertfordshire. On his father's death in 1654 he returned to King's College, where for some time there had been ‘a private society’ for religious exercises and theological discussion. As the other members left the university, Janeway gave himself to solitary study, thus injuring his health. Benjamin Whichcote [q. v.], then provost of King's College, recommended him as tutor in the family of ‘Dr. Cox,’ i.e. Thomas Coxe, M.D. [q. v.] After a short trial he found the work too heavy, and went for country air to stay with his mother and elder brother at Kelshall. He does not seem to have been ordained, but he preached twice in 1656. He fell into a rapid consumption, and died unmarried at Kelshall in June 1657. He was buried in Kelshall Church; a memorial tablet was placed in 1823 on the south wall of the chancel by John Henry Michell, then rector. Of his seven brothers (all of whom died under forty), William (b. 1631) succeeded his father (19 Oct. 1654) as rector of Kelshall, was ejected in 1662, and seems afterwards to have lived at Buntingford, Hertfordshire; Andrew (b. 1635) was a London merchant; James is separately noticed; Abraham was a preacher in London, where he died of consumption in September 1665.
[James Janeway's Invisibles, Realities, &c., 1673, deals mainly with his brother's religious experiences, and the chronology of the events of his last years is confused and uncertain. This account, somewhat abridged, is reproduced in Clarke's Lives, 1683, pp. 60 (bis) sq.; other abridgments are in Middleton's Biographia Evangelica, 1784, iii. 362 sq.; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, 1813, iii. 271 sq.; and Cox's Hist. of the Janeway Family, prefixed to James Janeway's Heaven upon Earth, 1847; Calamy's Account, 1713, p. 370; Calamy's Continuation, 1727, i. 530, ii. 964; Cussans's Hertfordshire, 1874; Urwick's Nonconf. in Hertfordshire, 1884, pp. 124, 563 sq., 658 sq., 729 sq., 758 sq., 797 sq., gives valuable data, but confuses the elder with the younger William Janeway, as Calamy had done in his Abridgment, 1702, p. 278.]