▶Date of birth:  17 January 1770       Place of birth: Blidworth, Nottinghamshire

▶Father:  Charles Jerram     Mother: Mary Knutton

▶Spouse(s):  Mary Stanger     Date(s) of marriage:  24 April 1798      Place(s) of marriage:  Tydd St Mary, Lincolnshire

▶Occupation: Schoolmaster, Tutor; Clergyman (Anglican), Author

▶Lifestory: Evangelical clergyman Charles Jerram worked as a schoolmaster, published on religious and social issues, and held a number of appointments in the Church, but did not live in Cheltenham, where in later life he invested in property. He was born in Blidworth, Nottinghamshire, in 1770, the second son of Charles Jerram, freehold farmer of an old but impoverished Derbyshire family, and his wife Mary (née Knutton), both of Blidworth, Nottinghamshire. He attended school in Chesham Bois, Buckinghamshire, and became an Assistant Master at a Unitarian school at Highgate in 1790. In 1793 he matriculated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, Norrisian prize 1793, BA (17th wrangler) 1797, MA 1800.

After graduation he was ordained Deacon and Priest 1797. In 1797 he was licensed Curate of Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, and in 1798 married Ann Stanger, of Tydd, Lincolnshire; they had five sons and two daughters. He left Long Sutton in 1805 to become Curate of Chobham in Surrey.

Jerram published on several subjects, religious and other, including Two sermons, preached at Long Sutton in October 1805, “on his taking leave of that neighbourhood”, and Considerations on the impolicy and pernicious tendency of the poor laws (1818). In Chobham he was appointed Vicar in 1810 (the advowson was held by his college), remaining there until 1834, except for two years when he was Minister of St John’s Chapel, Bedford Row, London 1824-26, following on from the death of his only daughter in 1823 and his eldest son in the following year; he took private pupils 1797-1822, and acquired a strong reputation as a tutor, preparing his charges for university examinations. His Treatise of the doctrine of atonement appeared in 1828.

In 1834 he moved to Witney, Oxfordshire, as Rector of Witney, where he saw out his days and published regular pastoral letters addressed to the inhabitants. As an investment, in September 1837 he, his niece Harriet (daughter of his brother John, a tea-dealer), and Henry Hubbert, a London tea-dealer, financed a mortgage of £600 to allow the owner of 12 Clarence Square in Pittville to complete a house on the original plot of land.

In Witney he was particularly active in promoting the construction of chapels, in Curbridge, Crawley, and Wood Green. He ‘may be regarded as one of the very best representatives of the second generation of the Evangelical school’ (Alumni Cantabrigienses). He died in Witney, Oxfordshire in 1853, at the age of seventy-three, was buried at St Lawrence churchyard, in Chobham.

▶Moved to Pittville from:   [did not reside in Pittville]     Moved from Pittville to:

▶Date of death:  20 June 1853      Place of death: Witney, Oxfordshire

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:  In Boase’s Modern English Biography and ODNB. See also – J. Jerram (ed.) The Memoirs and a selection of letters of the late Rev Charles Jerram (London) 1855          ID: 5517

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden