Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/261

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Jarry
255
Jay

3rd guards, afterwards Wellington's quartermaster-general in the Peninsula, Henry Edward Bunbury [q. v.], the fifth lord Aylmer, and Richard Bourke [q. v.] were among the students there. But Jarry soon found that the rudimentary knowledge of military science in the British army was too small to enable all his pupils to profit by his instruction, and recommended the formation of mathematical and fortification classes (ib.). Early in 1799 Isaac Dalby [q. v.] was appointed professor of mathematics, and two émigrés of the Ecole Polytechnique teachers of fortification, and the establishment, which had the approval of Sir Ralph Abercromby and other officers of distinction, acquired a semi-official status (ib.) In January 1801 a parliamentary grant of 30,000l. was voted for the establishment of a ‘royal military college,’ to consist of two departments, a senior at High Wycombe and a junior at Marlow, both of which were subsequently removed to Sandhurst. Of the former, which was to consist of thirty officers to be instructed in general staff duties, particularly those of the quartermaster-general's department, Jarry was appointed commandant 4 Jan. 1799. The assemblage of so many young officers solely for purposes of instruction was without precedent in the British army. Jarry was a man of high professional ability, of easy and refined manners, and the most unassuming disposition; but his lean, bent form and many eccentricities exposed him to persecution at the hands of some idlers among his pupils. Among the practical jokes indulged in by them was the destruction of all the models made by Jarry with his own hands for instruction in field-works. Cookery and gardening were his special hobbies. At the time of the peace of Amiens his position appears to have been so uncomfortable that he thought seriously of returning to France (cf. letters in Addit. MSS.) He was appointed inspector-general of instruction 25 June 1806, and died, after a tedious and painful illness, on 15 March 1807, aged 75. After some delay, pensions of 100l. a year each were given to his widow and daughters, who were left wholly unprovided for.

Jarry's treatise on the ‘Employment of Light Troops in the Field,’ which was translated and published by order of the Duke of York in 1803, and four small treatises on ‘Outpost Duties and the Movement of Armies in the Field’ are catalogued in the British Museum under Jarry, ‘John.’ Some of his letters and papers are preserved among Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 33101 and 33109–12; they throw no light on his military career.

An engraved portrait of Jarry appears in Sir Denis Le Marchant's ‘Memoirs of Major-general Le Marchant,’ 1841, p. 116.

[The fullest Account of Jarry is in Sir Denis Le Marchant's Memoirs of Major-general Le Marchant, London, 1841, of which only a small number of copies were printed. See also Ann. Register, 1792, pt. i.; Parl. Papers; Accounts and Papers, 1810, vol. ix., Military Enquiry Royal Military College; Rep. Select Committee on Military Education, 1855; Evidence of Sir Howard Douglas; Life of Sir H. E. Bunbury (privately printed); Brit. Mus. Cat. of Printed Books, under ‘Jarry —,’ and ‘Jarry, John;’ Add. MSS. ut supra; Gent. Mag. lxxi. 954, lxxvii. 285.]

H. M. C.

JARVIS, CHARLES (1675?–1739), portrait-painter and translator. [See Jervas.]

JARVIS, SAMUEL (fl. 1770), organist and composer, blind from his birth, had lessons on the organ from Dr. Worgan, and became organist to the London Foundling Hospital and to St. Sepulchre's, city of London.

Among his compositions are ‘Six Songs and a Cantata for the Harpsichord, Violin, and German Flute;’ air, ‘On Felicia,’ with bass; and ‘Twelve Songs, to which is added an Epitaph for Three Voices,’ edited after the composer's death by his pupil Groombridge.

[Dict. of Music, 1827, i. 389.]

L. M. M.

JARVIS, THOMAS (d. 1799), glass-painter. [See Jervais.]

JAY, JOHN GEORGE HENRY (1770–1849), violinist, son of Stephen Jay of Leytonstone, Essex, possibly the ‘eminent dancing-master’ referred to by Hawkins (Hist. Music, iii. 853 n.), was born on 27 Nov. 1770. He studied the violin and composition on the continent, returning to England in 1800. Jay matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1809, and obtained the degree of Mus. Doc. at Cambridge in 1811. He settled in London as professor of music, and died at Chelsea on 29 Aug. 1849. His chief publications were:

  1. ‘Phantasie and Two Sonatas for Pianoforte,’ London, 1801.
  2. ‘Waltzes for Pianoforte, with Flute accompaniment, the Second Set, Op. 22’ (1820?).
  3. Song, ‘How oft at eve,’ with flute and pianoforte accompaniment, 1846.
  4. Hungarian duet.

[Dict. of Music, 1827, i. 390; Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, ii. 744; Grad. Cant.; Times, 31 Aug. 1849, p. 7; Grove's Dict. ii. 32.]

L. M. M.

JAY, WILLIAM (1769–1853), dissenting minister, the son of a stonecutter and mason, was born at Tisbury, Wiltshire, on 8 May 1769. In 1783 he was apprenticed to his father, and worked with him in the erection