Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jewett, Randolph
JEWETT, RANDAL or RANDOLPH (d. 1675), organist and composer, is said to have received the (honorary?) degree of Mus. Bac. at Trinity College, Dublin, and to have studied music under Orlando Gibbons. Jewett was organist of the cathedrals of St. Patrick and Christ Church, Dublin, in 1631; was succeeded at Christ Church by Dr. B. Rogers in 1639; and was vicar-choral of St. Patrick's for a brief period in 1639, and again in 1641. He was vicar-choral of Christ Church in 1646. About this time (probably on the suppression of cathedral establishments) Jewett came to England, and was admitted minor canon of St. Paul's, 1661. For a short time before his death Jewett was organist of Winchester. He died there 4 July 1675. He describes himself in his will as Randolph Jewett of Winchester, gentleman, and it is possible that he was never ordained. Jewett left his property to his wife Anna (d. 1692), his son Benjamin (d. 1691), who graduated B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, 19 June 1669 (see Bloxam, Register, ii. 75), his daughter Deborah, and his grandchildren, John, Elizabeth, and Mary Jewett. Monuments of the family are in the north transept of Winchester Cathedral.
The solo funeral anthem, ‘I heard a voice,’ said in Tudway's collection, vol. iii. (Harl. MS. 7339), to be by Mr. Jewett of Exeter, is, with three more anthems and collects in Clifford's ‘Divine Services,’ ascribed to Randolph Jewett.
[Wood's Fasti, vol. i. col. 392; Grove's Dict. of Music, iv. 170; P. C. C. Registers of Wills, Dycer, fol. 76; Woodward's Hampshire, i. 77.]