JOWETT, BENJAMIN (1817-1893), English scholar and theologian, master of Balliol college, Oxford, was born in Camber well on April 15, 1817. His father was one of a Yorkshire family who, for three generations, had been supporters of the Evangelical movement in the Church of England. His mother was a Lang horne, in some way related to the poet and translator of Plutarch. At 12 the boy was placed on the foundation of St. Paul's school (then in St. Paul's Churchyard), and in his 19th year he obtained an open scholarship at Balliol. In 1838 he gained a fellowship, and graduated with first-class honours in 1839. He came to Oxford at the height of the Tractarian movement, and through the friend ship of W. G. Ward was drawn for a time in the direction of High Anglicanism ; but a stronger and more lasting influence was that of the Arnold school, represented by A. P. Stanley. In the sum mers of 1845 and 1846, spent in Germany with Stanley, he be came an eager student of German criticism and speculation ; and came under the influence of the writings of F. C. Baur (q.v.). He was appointed to the Greek professorship at Oxford in the autumn of 1855. He had been a tutor of Balliol and a clergyman since 1842.
His pupils became his friends for life. He discerned their capabilities, studied their characters, and sought to remedy their defects by frank and searching criticism. Like another Socrates, he taught them to know themselves, repressing vanity, encour aging the despondent, and attaching all alike by his unobtrusive sympathy. He had the reputation of "the great tutor." From 1846 onwards Jowett threw himself into the movement for university reform, which took effect in the commission of 185o and the act of 1854. Jowett served on the commission which led to the open ing of the Indian Civil Service to competition. A great disap pointment, his repulse for the mastership of Balliol, also in appears to have roused him into the completion of his book on The Epistles of St. Paul. This work is original and suggestive, but its publication aroused theological prejudice, which followed him more or less through life. Undeterred by this criticism, he
joined with Henry Bristowe Wilson and Rowland Williams, who had been similarly attacked, in the production of Essays and Reviews (186o), a book which was the signal for an outbreak of fanaticism. Jowett's influence at Oxford steadily increased. It culminated in 1864, when the country clergy, provoked by the final acquittal of the essayists, had voted in convocation against the endowment of the Greek chair. Jowett's pupils, who were now drawn from the university at large, supported him with enthusiasm.
In the meantime Jowett had been quietly exerting his influence so as to conciliate all shades of liberal opinion, and secure the abolition of the theological test, which was still required for the M.A. and other degrees, and for university and college offices. He spoke at a meeting upon this question in London (June 1o, 1864), which prepared the ground for the University Tests Act of 1871.
In connection with the Greek professorship Jowett had under taken a work on Plato which grew into a complete translation of the Dialogues with introductory essays. At this he worked in the vacations for at least ten years. But his interest in theology had not abated. The university pulpit, indeed, was closed to him, but from 1866 until the year of his death he preached annually in Westminster Abbey, where Stanley had become dean in 1863. In 1870, by an arrangement which he attributed to his friend Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke (at that time a mem ber of Gladstone's ministry), Scott was promoted to the deanery of Rochester and Jowett was elected to the vacant mastership by the fellows of Balliol. From the vantage-ground of this long coveted position the Plato was published in 1871. While scholars criticized particular renderings, it was generally agreed that he had provided a version of Plato which is an English classic.