Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jenison, Robert (1590-1656)

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1399269Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 29 — Jenison, Robert (1590-1656)1892Thompson Cooper

JENISON, ROBERT (1590–1656), jesuit, born in 1590, was the eldest son of William Jenison, esq., of Walworth Castle in the county of Durham, by Jane, daughter of Barnabas Scurlock, esq., of Ireland, and grandson to Thomas Jenison [q. v.], auditor-general of Ireland (Surtees, Hist. of Durham, iii. 320). He was admitted a student of Gray's Inn on 9 March 1615, was subsequently educated in the English jesuit college at St. Omer, and joined the society in 1617 or 1619. His name appears in Gee's list of priests and jesuits in and about London in 1623. His ordinary alias was Frevil, but he is also mentioned under the assumed name of Beaumont among the jesuits seized by the pursuivants at Clerkenwell in March 1628. In 1645 he became rector of the house of probation at Ghent, and in 1649 missioner in the Hampshire district, where he probably died on 10 or 13 Oct. 1656.

He was a man of erudition, and to him has been erroneously attributed the authorship of two works by Father John Floyd [see under Floyd, John 1572–1649, works numbered 1 and 14], published under the initials ‘J. R.’

[Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 414; Foley's Records, vols. v. and vii.; Gillow's Bibl. Dict. ii. 303, iii. 610; More's Hist. Missionis Anglic. Soc. Jesu, p. 425; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 122; Lysons's Environs of London, vol. iii; Southwell's Bibl. Scriptorum Soc. Jesu, p. 724.]

T. C.