Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/130

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Jacobsen
124
Jacobson

1855) by Mr. Pogson in 1884. Jacob published in 1850 the Singapore meteorological observations (1841–5), and in 1857 those at Dodabetta (1851–5). While in England in 1855 he wrote on the ‘Plurality of Worlds,’ and described his computation of stellar orbits for the Royal Astronomical Society (Monthly Notices, xv. 205).

[Monthly Notices, xxiii. 128; Mémoires Couronnés par l'Académie de Bruxelles, XXIII. ii. 129, 1873 (Mailly); André et Rayet's L'Astronomie Pratique, ii. 84.]

A. M. C.

JACOBSEN, THEODORE (d. 1772), architect, was a merchant in Basinghall Street, London. His family was residing near the Steelyard at the time of the fire of London. Jacobsen designed the Foundling Hospital; the plan was approved in 1742, and was carried out under John Horne as surveyor. He became a governor of the hospital, and there is a portrait of him still there by Thomas Hudson. Jacobsen also designed the Haslar Royal Hospital for Sick Soldiers at Gosport (see Gent. Mag. 1751, xxi. 408, for an engraving of this hospital). He was a fellow of the Royal Society, the Society of Antiquaries, and the Society of Arts. He died on 25 May 1772, and was buried in All Hallows Church, Thames Street, London.

[Dict. of Architecture; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]

L. C.

JACOBSON, WILLIAM (1803–1884), bishop of Chester, son of William Jacobson, a merchant's clerk, of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, by his wife Judith, born Clarke, was born on 18 July 1803. His father died shortly after his birth, and as his mother's second husband was a nonconformist, he was sent when about nine to a school at Norwich kept by Mr. Brewer, a baptist, father of John Sherren Brewer [q. v.] Thence he went to Homerton (nonconformist) College, London, and in 1822–3 was a student at Glasgow University. On 3 May 1823 he was admitted commoner of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, being, it is said, befriended by Dawson Turner of Yarmouth, a member of the Society of Friends (Times). His means were small, and he lived a life of great self-denial. In May 1825 he was elected scholar of Lincoln College (B.A. in 1827), taking a second class in literæ humaniores. Failing to win a fellowship at Exeter College, he was a private tutor in Ireland until 1829. He then returned to Oxford, obtained the Ellerton theological prize, was elected fellow at Exeter on 30 June, and proceeded M.A. On 6 June 1830 he was ordained deacon, was appointed to the curacy of St. Mary Magdalen, Oxford, and was ordained priest the following year. In 1832 he was appointed vice-principal of Magdalen Hall, where he did much to encourage industry and enforce discipline. With a view to preparing an edition of the ‘Patres Apostolici,’ he went at this period to Florence, Rome, and elsewhere to consult manuscripts. In 1836 he was offered a mastership at Harrow by Dr. Longley, the head-master, afterwards archbishop of York; but as Longley was that year made bishop of Ripon, nothing came of it. He offered himself as Longley's successor at Harrow, but was not appointed. In 1839 he became perpetual curate of Iffley, near Oxford, was made public orator of the university in 1842, and was chosen select preacher in 1833, 1842, and 1863, but did not serve on the last occasion. By the advice of Lord John Russell, then prime minister, Jacobson was in 1848 promoted to the regius professorship of divinity at Oxford, which carried with it a canonry of Christ Church, and at that time also the rectory of Ewelme, Oxfordshire. In politics he was a liberal, and he was chairman of Mr. W. E. Gladstone's election committee at Oxford in 1865. On 23 June 1865 he accepted the offer of the see of Chester, and was consecrated on 8 July.

Jacobson was a man of universally acknowledged piety and of simple habits. Although extremely reserved and cautious, he never hesitated to act in accordance with his sense of right, and was a kind and considerate friend. He was a high churchman of the old scholarly sort; the Oxford movement exercised no influence on him, and he took no part in it. While his theological lectures, given when he was divinity professor at Oxford, were replete with erudition, those at which the attendance of candidates for orders was compulsory were unsuited to the larger part at least of his audience. He diligently performed his episcopal duties, and in the general administration of his diocese he showed tact and judgment; he continued to live simply, and gave away his money liberally. In his charge at his primary visitation in October 1868 (published) he spoke without reserve on the duty of rubrical conformity. Although personally he had no liking for new or extreme ritual, he made it clearly understood that he would discountenance prosecutions, and that he viewed with displeasure laxity and defect in order. His call to conformity gave offence to the more violent low churchmen, and in the earlier years of his episcopate he was twice mobbed by ‘Orangemen’ in Liverpool when on his way