Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jollie, Timothy
JOLLIE, TIMOTHY (1659?–1714), independent tutor, son of Thomas Jollie [q. v.], was born at Altham, Lancashire, about 1659. On 27 Aug. 1673 he entered the academy of Richard Frankland [q. v.] at Rathmell, Yorkshire. He left it in December 1675 to study in London, where he became a member of the independent church at Girdlers' Hall, Basinghall Street, under George Griffith. In 1679 he was called to an independent church in a newly erected meeting-house at Snig Hall, Sheffield. He was ordained on 28 April 1681 by his father, with Oliver Heywood [q. v.] and two other ministers, at the house of Abel Yates in Sheffield. Heywood notes the occasion as remarkable, seeing that an independent church, with but two objectors, allowed their pastor to be ordained by presbyters. In 1682 Jollie was arrested under the Five Miles Act, fined 20l., taken to York, and bound over to appear at the next assizes. Refusing then to take an oath of ‘good behaviour,’ he was imprisoned for six months in York Castle, where, in June 1683, he was visited by Heywood. He was liberated on 1 Oct. 1683.
From 1686 to 1689 Frankland had held his academy at Attercliffe, on the outskirts of Sheffield. On his return in July 1689 with the academy to Rathmell, Jollie started an independent academy at Attercliffe. The London presbyterian fund sent him a few students, but none after 1696. By May 1700 he had sent out forty ministers, and had twenty-six in training. Not thirty names of his students are known, but the list includes Thomas Bradbury [q. v.], Benjamin Grosvenor, D.D. [q. v.], William Harris, D.D. (1675?–1740) [q. v.], John Bowes (1690–1767) [q. v.], lord chancellor of Ireland, Thomas Secker (in 1708–9), archbishop of Canterbury, and Nicholas Saunderson, LL.D., the blind mathematician and numismatist. Grosvenor commends the excellence of his discipline and the charm of his eloquence, and thinks that his exemplary character compensated for shortcomings in his learning. It appears that mathematical studies were prohibited ‘as tending to scepticism and infidelity,’ but many of the students ‘by stealth made a considerable progress’ in this department. After Jollie's death the academy was continued by John Wadsworth till 1718, and perhaps later.
In 1700 a new meeting-house, since known as the Upper Chapel, was built for Jollie at Sheffield, the old building being converted into an almshouse and school. His hearers formed the largest nonconformist congregation in Yorkshire. His letter to Heywood in 1701 shows that he shared Heywood's alarm at the rise of ‘novellists,’ or innovators upon the orthodoxy of Calvinism. Harmony prevailed among his own flock, but there was an angry division immediately after his death, the great majority abandoning independency, but retaining the meeting-house. He died on Easter day, 28 March 1714, and was buried on 31 March in the graveyard at the Upper Chapel, where his tombstone bears a Latin inscription, which gives his age ‘ætatis suæ 56.’ His funeral sermon was preached by his assistant, John de la Rose. He married Elizabeth (d. 20 Jan. 1709), daughter of James Fisher (d. 1666), the ejected vicar of Sheffield; his two sons are noticed below.
He published: 1. ‘A Funeral Sermon for … Rev. Thomas Jollie,’ &c., 1704, 8vo. 2. ‘A Memorial, or a Character of Mr. Thomas Whitaker,’ &c., 1712, 8vo (prefixed to a volume of Whitaker's sermons, edited by Jollie and Thomas Bradbury [q. v.]).
Thomas Jollie the younger (d. 1764), independent minister, the elder son, was educated by his father. On 30 May 1711 he was chosen minister of the independent congregation at Bradfield, Norfolk, and ordained there on 13 June. In May 1726 he succeeded John Jollie the younger [see under Jollie, Thomas] at Wymondhouses, Lancashire; he formed a branch of this congregation at Oakenshaw. In 1737 he removed to Cockermouth, Cumberland, where he died on 8 June 1764.
Timothy Jollie the younger (1692–1757), younger son of Timothy Jollie, was born at Attercliffe in 1692. Educated by his father, he became, about 1716, assistant to Wadsworth, his father's successor at Sheffield. In 1720 he became assistant to Matthew Clarke (1664–1726) [q.v.] at Miles Lane, Cannon Street, London, and was ordained pastor in September 1726, a minority seceding on suspicion of his orthodoxy. He suffered all his life from gout, and died on 3 Aug. 1757. He published ‘Christ's Dominion,’ &c., 1730, 8vo. His funeral sermon was preached by David Jennings, D.D. [q.v.]
[Funeral sermons for Timothy Jollie, 1715, Elizabeth Jollie, 1709, and Timothy Jollie, 1757; Wilson's Dissenting Churches of London, 1808, i. 345 sq., 492 sq.; Monthly Repository, 1811, p. 9; Hadfield's Manchester Socinian Controversy, 1825, pp. 172 sq.; Bogue and Bennett's Hist. of Dissenters, 1833, i. 301; Hunter's Life of Oliver Heywood, 1842, pp. 299 sq., 375, 401; Miall's Congregationalism in Yorkshire, 1868, pp. 121 sq., 350 sq.; Halley's Lancashire, 1869, ii. 262 sq.; Gatty's Hunter's Hallamshire, 1869, pp. 293 sq., 425; Browne's Hist. Congr. Norf. and Suff. 1877, pp. 310 sq.; Turner's Nonconf. Reg. of Heywood and Dickenson, 1881, pp. 247, 263; Jeremy's Presbyterian Fund, 1885, pp. 12, 25, 40; Nightingale's Lancashire Nonconformity [1891], ii. 192 sq.; Josiah Thompson's manuscript account of Academies, in Dr. Williams's Library.]