



JOHN WILFRED JENKINSON 



To remember is, during this devastating war-time, almost 

 the sole part left to Oxford. ' How doth the city sit solitary 

 that was full of people ! how is she become as a widow ! ' Of 

 the fallen, most will be remembered as gallant youths who 

 laid down life while it was yet all promise, a garden of 

 blossoming hopes. But some were senior men, with their 

 faculties already mature, and their life-work in active process 

 of achievement. Among such elder sons of the University 

 who fought and are gone was John Wilfred Jenkinson. His 

 name will live on in his written works; for at least some- 

 thing of the rich fruitage of his mind has been harvested, 

 though how much more has been lost can never be known. 

 Yet a man is more than his books. So let these few lines 

 be dedicated to the memory of the man himself by one 

 who, as his tutor first and his colleague afterwards, learnt 

 to know him for the noble spirit that he was, and to admire 

 and esteem him accordingly. 



A contrast is sometimes drawn between the man of thought 

 and the man of action; but it is possible for these diverse 

 characters to unite harmoniously in the same individual. 

 Jenkinson's outstanding quality was strength of purpose. 

 Nothing in the form of work could daunt him. His was the 

 ascetic, the morally no less than physically athletic, tempera- 

 ment that rejoices in hard, clean striving for its own sake. 

 Such a mind must be up and doing. Its activities will, 

 therefore, naturally issue in research, in bringing truth to 

 light. But Jenkinson was likewise a thinker in whom the 

 purely contemplative mood craved for satisfaction. The pre- 

 condition of his research must be some vision of the whole. 



