Benjamin Jowett was an English educator and Greek scholar. He is famous for his translation of the dialogues of Plato and Thucydides and for his academic reforms at Oxford. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford.
Background
Jowett was born in Camberwell, London, United Kingdom, on 15 April 1817, and grew up in Camberwell, the third of nine children. His father was a furrier originally from a Yorkshire family that, for three generations, had been supporters of the Evangelical movement in the Church of England; and an author of a metrical translation of the Old Testament Psalms.
His mother was a Langhorne, in some way related to the poet and translator of Plutarch.
His father's failure to support his family assisted this independence, for while Mrs. Jowett took refuge in her sister's house with her younger children, young Ben lived alone in lodgings from eleven onward, while attending St. Paul's School.
Education
At twelve the boy was placed on the foundation of St Paul's School (then in St Paul's Churchyard), and in his nineteenth year he obtained an open scholarship at Balliol.
In 1838 he gained a fellowship, and graduated with first-class honours in 1839.
Jowett was thus led to concentrate his attention on theology, and in the summers of 1845 and 1846, spent in Germany with Stanley, he became an eager student of German criticism and speculation.
He discerned their capabilities, studied their characters, and sought to remedy their defects by frank and searching criticism.
As early as 1839 Stanley had joined with Tait, the future archbishop, in advocating certain university reforms.
Career
In 1855 Jowett finished his book The Epistles of St. Paul. His essay on the atonement was attacked as unorthodox, but in spite of strong opposition he was appointed regius professor of Greek, with an annual salary of £40. His contribution to Essays and Reviews (1860) caused his opponents to accuse him of heresy before the vice chancellor’s court, but proceedings were eventually dropped. Nevertheless, attempts to augment his salary were opposed, and it was not until 1865 that Christ Church freed endowments to produce a stipend of £500 a year. During this period his lectures on the Republic stimulated intense interest in Plato.
Jowett’s election as master of Balliol in 1870 enabled him to rebuild a considerable portion of the college and to establish a hall for noncollegiate students. During this period he published his translations of The Dialogues of Plato (1871) and of Thucydides’ History (1881). As vice-chancellor of the university (1882–86), he encouraged drama and music and completed his translation of Aristotle’s Politics. His edition of the Republic, on which he had worked for 30 years, was published posthumously in 1894.
Religion
Jowett was brought up as an evangelical but became a churchman of independent mind.
The publication of his essay "On the Interpretation of Scripture" caused an uproar in the Anglican Church and led to Jowett's civil trial for heresy, with the prosecution eventually being dropped.
His views became more than radical, they were heretical, which severely curtailed prospects for advancement within the walls of the conformity of Anglican Oxford.
