JENISON, THOMAS (1525?–1587), auditor-general of Ireland, was the eldest son of Robert Jenison of Yokeflete, Yorkshire, and Agnes, daughter of William Wren of the Isle of Ely. He was appointed auditor-general of Ireland on 10 Feb. 1550, but being charged with defalcations in his accounts he was in 1553 suspended for a time from his office. On 25 Nov. 1560 he was appointed controller of the works and keeper of the stores at Berwick. In 1564 he again found employment in Ireland, though still retaining his office at Berwick. In 1568 he was appointed to audit the accounts of Sir William Fitzwilliam for the ten years ending midsummer 1569, and in 1573 he was employed ‘to make an exact book of the gift of the country.’ He was attacked by gout in 1580, and obtained some relief from the prescription of a poor Irish priest. He himself incurred the charge of being a papist, and was greatly afflicted by the conversion to Roman catholicism of his eldest son, whom he thereupon disinherited. In June 1584 he was appointed a commissioner to survey the forfeited lands in Munster, but was prevented by ill-health from attending to the business. On 20 Oct. 1587 he surrendered his office to Christopher Payton and died almost immediately afterwards, 17 Nov. He was a capable and diligent official, and, notwithstanding the charges of corruption preferred against him, he was an honest servant of the crown, though, according to Sir John Perrot, he ‘lived like a hog and died like a dog.’ His letters throw much light on the state of Ireland in Elizabeth's reign, and reveal very clearly the chief difficulties with which the Irish government had to contend. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Birch of Sandon in Bedfordshire, groom-porter to Henry VIII, and by her had five sons and a daughter. He bought the property of Walworth in Durham from the Ayscough family, and rebuilt the castle. It was here that on 14 April 1603 his widow, who survived till 1605, entertained James I on his first journey into England. His grandson, Robert Jenison, jesuit, is separately noticed.
[Liber Hiberniæ, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 53; Surtees's Durham, iii. 320; Nichols's Progresses of James I, i. 75; Morrin's Cal. of Patent Rolls, Eliz.; Cal. State Papers, Ireland, ed. Hamilton, vols. i. ii. iii.; Cal. Carew MSS. vols. i. ii.; Cal. Foreign Correspondence, vols. iii–ix.]
JENKES, HENRY (d. 1697), Gresham professor of rhetoric, descended from a Prussian family, was a native of England, and received his early education at King's College, Aberdeen, where he was admitted in 1642, and graduated M.A. in 1646 (Fasti Aberdonenses, Spalding Club, pp. 466, 512). On 21 March 1646 he was admitted a member of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and in 1649 he was incorporated M.A. in that university. He was elected a fellow of Caius College, Cambridge, in the time of the civil war. On the occasion of the opening of the Sheldonian Theatre he was incorporated M.A. at Oxford, 13 July 1669. He was elected professor of rhetoric in Gresham College, London, on 21 Oct. 1670, in succession to Dr. William Croone [q. v.] He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 30 Nov. 1674, and he resigned his professorship on 2 Oct. 1676. After this he resided wholly at Cambridge, living by his fellowship at Caius College. Dying there at the end of August 1697, he was buried on 1 Sept. in the church of St. Michael, in which parish the college is situated. He corresponded with several learned men in Holland.
His works are: 1. ‘The Christian Tutor, or a Free and Rational Discourse of the Sovereign Good and Happiness of Man,’ London, 1683, 8vo. 2. ‘De Natura et Constitutione Ethicæ, præsertim Christianæ, ejusque Usu et Studio,’ prefixed to ‘Stephani Curcellæi Synopsis ethices,’ London, 1684; Cambridge, 1702. 3. ‘The Christian Dial.’ 4. ‘Rationale Biblicum,’ manuscript left ready for the press at the time of his death.
[Addit. MS. 5873, f. 22; Ward's Gresham Professors, p. 327, with the author's manuscript notes; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 311; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), iii. 626.]
JENKIN, HENRIETTA CAMILLA (1807?–1885), novelist, only daughter of Robert Jackson, custos rotulorum of Kingston, Jamaica, and of Susan Campbell, a Scotchwoman, was born in Jamaica about 1807, and married in 1832 Charles Jenkin, midshipman (afterwards commander) R.N. Their son, Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin, is separately noticed. An accomplished and personally attractive woman, Mrs. Jenkin was long a favourite in society. Without having natural literary tastes, she began to write under pressure of poverty. Her first novel, ‘Violet Bank and its Inmates,’ 1858, had little success; but she acquired a reputation by ‘Cousin Stella,’ 1859, a West Indian novel showing both power and cleverness, and ‘Who Breaks, Pays,’ 1861, a skilful delineation of an English coquette. Her later novels were: 1. ‘Skirmishing,’ 1862. 2. ‘Once and Again,’ 1865. 3. ‘Two French Marriages,’ 1868 (republished in New York as ‘A Psyche of To-day,’ 1868, and ‘Madame de Beauprés,’ 1869). 4. ‘Within an Ace,’ 1869. 5. ‘Jupiter's Daughters,’ 1874. She
