Jenkyn, William

Jenkyn, William, an English Nonconformist divine, was born at Sudbury, Suffolk, in 1612, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge. He first became lecturer of St. Nicholas Acons, London, and in 1641 minister of Christ Church, Newgate Street, and lecturer of St. Ann's, Blackfriars. Refusing to observe (in 1662) the public thanksgiving appointed by Parliament on occasion of the destruction of the monarchy, he was ejected for nonconformity. Soon after he was sent to the Tower for participation in Love's plot, but, upon petition, was pardoned, and restored to the ministry. Mr. Feak, who had in the interim become minister of Christ Church, was removed, and Mr. Jenkyn reinstated. Upon this he devoted himself with zeal to his work. On the passage of the Oxford Act he refused to take the oath and retired from London to Hertfordshire, where he preached privately. After the Act of Indulgence in 1671, he returned again to London; but when, in 1682, the tempest broke out against the Nonconformists, he fell into the hands of his enemies, and was sent to Newgate under the Conventicle Act, where he died, from the air and infection of the prison, in 1685. Jenkyn enjoyed a very enviable reputation among his contemporaries for Christian piety and great ability. Richard Baxter pronounced him "a sententious and elegant preacher." He published An Exposition of the Epistle of Jude (London, 1652-54, 4to; another ed. revised by the Rev. James Sherman, with memoir of the author, London, 1839, imp. 8vo, and often). See Allibone, Dict. of Authors, 1, 963; Nonconformists' Memorial; Calamy, Ministers ejected (1728); Hoefer, Nouv. Biograph. Générale, 26, 649.