The Life and times of Leonard Jenyns

Roger Vaughan, Geological Conservator, Bristol Museum, on 6 February 2002

Roger Vaughan was Keeper of Collections at the `Geological Museum' in 18 Queen Square for the two years 1989 - 1990 and made an invaluable inventory of all the contents of the Institution's Collections at that time. When the Institution was revived in 1993 he produced the text for the first public display about the Institution. During these years he studied the books in the Jenyns Library from which he learnt much about Jenyns' life. He has subsequently extended this interest and has become a leading source of knowledge about Jenyns.

Jenyns was born in 1800 in London, son of Rev.George Jenyns, Prebendary of Ely Cathedral and vicar of Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire. His mother was Mary Herberden, whose father and brother were both physicians to the Royal family. The Jenyns family lived, and still does, at Bottisham Hall, Cambs., but also had a house in Connaught Place, London.

Jenyns went to Eton College, where he had his own single room, a most useful privilege. Whilst there, he was influenced by his uncle Chappelow to take an interest in natural history; he also copied out and committed to memory almost the whole of Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne. He went to St John's College, Cambridge at the age of 18, where in his second year he became friends with John Stevens Henslow, who later married Jenyns' sister Harriet. Henslow was keen on natural history and together they tried to record all the natural history of the whole of Cambridgeshire. Henslow became vicar of Hitcham, Suffolk and when he had to lecture in Cambridge to maintain his lectureship, Jenyns deputised for him in his parish.

Having noted that Gilbert White recorded the relationship between natural history and the climate - the day of first flowering, first bird appearance etc. Jenyns started a similar record as a young man and maintained it all his life, sometimes staying up all night to note down which bird first arrived in his garden or sang in the morning and recording the meteorological conditions over night.

Jenyns was curate, then vicar of Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambs. from 1823 to 1849, reviving the church that had fallen out of regular use for the lack of a resident vicar. He was a very neat and tidy methodical man, described as "the oldest man people knew when he was young". He kept diaries which he wrote up annually, made many walking tours around England, each carefully recorded in detail, and made friends with many other naturalists, such as Christopher Broome, Charles Darwin, Prideaux John Selby, and later, Joseph Dalton Hooker, who married Henslow's daughter. With all of these and many others he kept up correspondence over many years.

In 1831 he was invited to accompany Capt. Fitroy in the Beagle on a voyage round the world but decided he could not leave his parish. Henslow was also approached, but finally Darwin was appointed after being suggested by Henslow and Jenyns. On his return, Darwin got Jenyns to write the Fish Volume of the `Zoology of the Beagle' and many fish are still named by Jenyns as he was the first to describe them.

In 1844 Jenyns married Jane Daubeny at Ampney Crucis, near Cirencester. She found Cambridgeshire unhealthy and became ill, so in 1849 they went to Ventnor, Isle of Wight, but that winter was very cold and proved unsuitable; then they moved to South Stoke and then Swainswick, where Jane who died in 1860, is buried. Two years later Jenyns married Sarah Hawthorne and moved to 1 Darlington Place, Bath. He had been involved in setting up the natural history collections at the RLSI for some years.

All this time Jenyns had been attending meeting of the British Association, which he joined at their second conference. He wrote books and leaflets on a wide variety of subjects: a reprint of Natural History of Selborne with footnotes by Jenyns to bring it up to date; A Manual of Vertebrate Animals, Obsevations in Natural History and others. His preserved correspondence with Charles Darwin and his other naturalist friends is of considerable historical value today. He also formed the Bath Natural History & Antiquarian Field Club in 1855.

In 1871 he inherited a very large fortune, created by the publishing rights and subsequent investments relating to a set of volumes about the Topography of Norfolk written by a distant relative Francis Blomefield who died in 1817. The inheritance required him to change his name to Blomefield, which he did without complaint.

He moved to 19 Belmont, a smaller house, and gave his Library to the Institution provided a separate room was built to house it. He continued to use it and add to it for years. He prepared a catalogue showing the arrangement of the books, a copy of which we have. He wrote a charming autobiography "Chapters in My Life" in which nothing he states is second hand. He helped the Institution to set up a meteorological Station in their gardens that was kept up for many years. He was working in his Library up to two days before his death, at the age of 93. He is buried in Lansdown Cemetery near Beckford's Tower. His wife Sarah died about 1904 and is buried with him.

Further details about Jenyns/ Blomefield, can be found on Roger Vaughan's web site.

Donald Lovell