JESSE, EDWARD (1780–1868), English writer on natural history, was born on the 14th of January 1780, at Hutton Cranswick, Yorkshire, where his father was vicar of the parish. He became clerk in a government office in 1798, and for a time was secretary to Lord Dartmouth, when president of the Board of Control. In 1812 he was appointed commissioner of hackney coaches, and later he became deputy surveyor-general of the royal parks and palaces. On the abolition of this office he retired on a pension, and he died at Brighton on the 28th of March 1868.
The result of his interest in the habits and characteristics of animals was a series of pleasant and popular books on natural history, the principal of which are Gleanings in Natural History (1832–1835); An Angler’s Rambles (1836); Anecdotes of Dogs (1846); and Lectures on Natural History (1863). He also edited Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler, Gilbert White’s Selborne, and L. Ritchie’s Windsor Castle, and wrote a number of handbooks to places of interest, including Windsor and Hampton Court.