Benjamin Jowett (1817 - 1893)

Benjamin Jowett (15 April 1817 – 1 October 1893) was renowned as an influential tutor and administrative reformer in the University of Oxford, a theologian and translator of Plato. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford. Benjamin Jowett (pronounced to rhyme with 'know it') was born in Camberwell, London. His father was from a Yorkshire family that, for three generations, had been supporters of the Evangelical movement in the Church of England. His mother was a Langhorne, related to John Langhorne, the poet and translator of Plutarch. At twelve, Jowett was placed on the foundation of St Paul's School (then in St Paul's Churchyard), and at age 18 he obtained an open scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, where he remained for the rest of his life. In 1838, Jowett gained a fellowship; he graduated with first-class honours in 1839. This was at the height of the Oxford Tractarian movement: through the friendship of W.G. Ward he 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.