L. P. Jacks - Early Life

Early Life

Jacks was born on October 9, 1860, in Nottingham, to Anne Steere and Jabez Jacks. When his father died in 1874, George Herbert, at the University School in Nottingham, allowed the 14 year old Jacks to continue his education without fee. At about the same time, his family took in a Unitarian lodger, Sam Collinson, who discussed religion with Jacks and lent him books such as Matthew Arnold's Literature and Dogma. Jacks left school at the age of 17 and spent the next five years teaching at private schools, while earning a degree as an External Student at the University of London.

In 1882, Jacks enrolled in Manchester New College, London, to train for the clergy, and became a Unitarian while at the College, under the influence of James Estlin Carpenter and James Martineau. After graduating, he spent a year on scholarship at Harvard University, where he studied with the philosopher Josiah Royce and the literary scholar Charles Eliot Norton. In 1887, after returning from the United States of America, he received an unexpected invitation (due to Carpenter's recommendation) to take the prestigious position of assistant minister to Stopford Brooke in his chapel in London; he later wrote that "Had I received an invitation to become demigod to Apollo my surprise would hardly have been greater." He served as assistant minister for a year, and then accepted a position as Unitarian minister for Renshaw Street Chapel in Liverpool in 1888.

In 1889, Jacks married Olive Brooke (the fourth daughter of Stopford Brooke), whom he had fallen in love with on the ship returning from America. They had six children together.

In 1894, Jacks was appointed minister for the Church of the Messiah in Birmingham, England, where he developed his democratic political and religious views, holding that "the Common Man is the appointed saviour of the world," and developed his idea of a natural religion accessible to everyone, regardless of denomination or creed.