Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jenison, Robert (1584?-1652)
JENISON or JENNISON, ROBERT (1584?–1652), puritan, son of Ralph Jenison, who died mayor of Newcastle, 16 May 1597, and cousin of Robert Jenison (1590–1656) [q. v.], jesuit, was born at Newcastle about 1584, and was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted fellow in 1607. He subsequently became D.D., and seems to have acted for some time as domestic chaplain in the family of Henry, sixth earl of Kent (Cole, Athenæ Cantabr. i. 12). He resigned his fellowship in March 1619, having previously been appointed the first master of St. Mary Magdalene's Hospital, Newcastle, which was reincorporated by James I in 1611. He was made a lecturer at All Saints', Newcastle, in 1622; and in a motion made by the churchwardens of that parish with a view to raising his stipend he is spoken of as one ‘whose paines and labours in this parish is extraordinary amongst us.’ Another subscription was made for the ‘better encouragement’ of Dr. Jenison in 1631, and in the same year the Trinity House sent him a present of four gallons of sack. Suspended for nonconformity in 1639, Jenison betook himself to Danzig, but upon the sequestration of Yeldred Alvey, the royalist vicar of St. Nicholas, Newcastle, by the House of Commons in 1645, he was recalled to fill Alvey's place. Shortly after his appointment he administered the Solemn League and Covenant to the important Guild of Masters and Mariners in Newcastle. In 1651 Jenison joined with six other ministers of Newcastle in complaining to Cromwell that Captain Robert Everard was preaching Arminian and Socinian doctrines, and was encouraged in so doing by Lieutenant-colonel Mason (commanding the garrison in Colonel Fairfax's absence). He died on 6 Nov. 1652, and was buried in St. Nicholas Church. He married Barbara, daughter of Samuel Sanderson of Hedleyhope, Durham, who survived him and remarried John Emerson, mayor of Newcastle in 1660. She died 9 Aug. 1673.
According to Mackenzie (Historical Account of Newcastle, i. 282, 316) Jenison was the author of a book ‘concerning the idolatry of the Israelites,’ which is not in the British Museum Library. Jenison also wrote: 1. ‘Purgatorie's Triumph over Hell, maugre the barking of Cerberus in Syr. E. Hobyes Countersnarle,’ 1613, 4to. 2. ‘The Christian's Apparelling by Christ’ (with a recommendatory preface by R. Sibbs), 1625, 8vo. 3. ‘The Citie's Safetie; or, a fruitfull treatise … on Psalm cxxvij. 1,’ 1630, 8vo. 4. ‘Newcastle's Call to her Neighbours and sister Townes and Cities throughout the Land, to take Warning by her Sins and Sorrows lest this overflowing Scourge of Pestilence reach even to them also,’ London, 1637, 12mo. 5. ‘Of Compunction or Pricking of Heart, the time, means, nature, necessity, and order of it, and of Conversion,’ 4to (no date), to which ‘A Catalogue of the most Vendible Books in England,’ London, 1657, is added.
[Cooper's Memorials of Cambridge, ii. 115; Baker's Hist. of St. John's College, Cambridge, pp. 292, 891; Brand's Hist. of Newcastle-on-Tyne, i. 65, 387; Journals of House of Commons, vol. iii.; Memoirs of Ambrose Barnes (Surtees Soc.), passim; Durham Wills and Inventories, vol. ii. (Surtees Soc.)]