JACOB, Ebenezer (b.c.1792), of 20 Upper Gloucester Street and 54 Harcourt Street, Dublin and Rathdowney, Tagoat, co. Wexford

The son of a clergyman and a native of county Wexford, Jacob was of Quaker origins and ‘Orange lineage’. While still a minor, he married the daughter of an active and influential local magistrate and ‘zealous loyalist’, who served as high sheriff of the county.2His brother, Rev. Thomas John Jacob (c. 1805-71) joined the church, while his brother-in-law, Brigadier-General Nicholas Wilson (1795-1857) of Sledagh, Co. Wexford, fell at Cawnpore: Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 6 Oct 1866. By 1812 he was a midshipman in the Royal Navy, and is believed to have taken part in John Ross’s expedition to the Arctic in 1818.3M.J. Ross, Polar Pioneers. John Ross and James Clark Ross (1994), 194-5, 268. According to a family history, his name was given to Jacob’s Bay on the west coast of Greenland, near the modern settlement of Jacobshaven: A.H. Jacob & J.H. Glascott, An Historical and Genealogical Narrative of the Families of Jacob (1875), 87-91. On returning to Ireland he came into possession of ‘moderate property’ in county Wexford, where his family had been active magistrates and commanders of yeomanry at the time of the 1798 Rebellion.4D. Gahan, The People’s Rising: Wexford 1798 (1995), 78; J. O’Connell, Recollections of a Parliamentary Career (1849), i. 99, 103; R. Huish, The Memoirs, Private and Political, of Daniel O’Connell (1836), 480.

A ‘gentleman of great respectability’, Jacob joined the Catholic Association and came to prominence in November 1829 when he allied himself with a Church reform movement which had recently been started in Cork by the evangelical earl of Mountcashel.5Belfast News-letter, 25 Dec. 1829; Huish, Memoirs of Daniel O’Connell, 480; I. D’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics in Cork 1812-1844 (1980), 76-7. His public criticism of the Bishop of Ferns over the recovery of rectoral tithes in Wexford parish and other apparent abuses by the clergy quickly attracted the attention of the national press, but he was remained ‘an earnest, though unobtrusive supporter of the popular cause’ when he mounted the platform in support of the radical reformer Henry Lambert at the county Wexford election in 1831.6The Times, 30 Nov. 1829; Standard, 30 Nov. 1829; Huish, Memoirs of Daniel O’Connell, 480; Freeman’s Journal, 25 May 1831. That August, however, he attended a meeting to protest against the ‘Newtownbarry massacre’, by which time he had established a reputation in Dublin as ‘one of the most zealous and independent Protestant friends of Ireland’.7Freeman’s Journal, 18 Sept. 1830, 1 Aug. 1831. An active figure in repeal circles, he refused to pay ‘minister’s money’ in St. Thomas’s parish, Dublin, and in January 1833 chaired meetings of the National Political Union and the Irish Volunteers’ Society.8Morning Chronicle, 26 May 1832; Freeman’s Journal, 4, 14 Jan. 1833.

In February 1834 Jacob was brought forward for a vacancy at Dungarvan by Daniel O’Connell, who had faith in the integrity of this ‘plain and honest man’, and described Jacob’s return as ‘one of the most pleasing events in my life’.9Morning Chronicle, 1 Feb. 1834; Huish, Memoirs of Daniel O’Connell, 482; O’Connell to P. V. Fitzgerald, 17, 24 Feb. 1834, O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M. R. O’Connell, v. 99-100, 105-6. He was received with loud cheers by Irish opposition members when taking his seat and voted with O’Connell on most Irish issues, such as church temporalities, tithes and coercion, and divided against Lord Althorp’s motion on church rates, 21 Apr. 1834.10Hull Packet and East Riding Times, 7 Mar.; Morning Chronicle, 10 Mar., 28 Apr. 1834. He also showed concern for wider radical reforms, backing Hume’s motions for the reduction of spending on the army and yeomanry, 28 Feb., 10 Mar., and voting for Rippon’s motion to relieve the bishops of their legislative duties in the House of Lords, 13 Mar. He divided for the abolition of flogging in the army, 14 Mar., and in favour of voting by ballot, 21 Apr. After being unseated for bribery, 24 Apr. 1834, Jacob regained his seat, 16 May, after another stormy by-election during which he employed the ‘rough speech’ he had learned whilst at sea to hector and overawe opponents on the hustings.11See O’Connell, Recollections, i. 99-108. He was reintroduced to the Commons by Feargus O’Connor on 2 June, and overcame a petition against his return. He backed Hume’s amendment to the Irish tithes bill, 4 July, and voted for the accurate recording of the divisions of the House, 8 July 1834.

Although Conservative opponents considered that as a Protestant Jacob had been ‘a much more dangerous foe’ to the Protestant interest than a Catholic Member, he stood down before the 1835 general election when it was claimed that, ‘having squandered almost all his fortune on elections’, he had been ‘forced to resign’ to make way for O’Connell’s favoured candidate.12Hansard, 7 Mar. 1836, vol. 31, cc. 1350-1; Morning Chronicle, 3 June 1834; Morning Post, 26 Dec. 1834. Having abandoned Dungarvan, he offered to stand alongside Richard Lalor Sheil for County Tipperary on the understanding that he would only contribute to election expenses if returned. His ‘hypothetical IOU’ was, however, promptly declined.13The Times, 27 Nov. 1834; W. Torrens McCullagh, The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Richard Lalor Sheil (1855), ii. 202. Although Jacob did not stand again for Parliament, he remained active in repeal politics. While seldom taking part in debate, he chaired several meetings of the Anti-Tory Association and presided at a meeting of the General Association in February 1837. As churchwarden of St. Thomas’s parish, he chaired a meeting which criticised the corporation of Dublin and called for municipal reform.14Belfast Newsletter, 28 Nov. 1834, 5 May 1835; The Times, 20 Feb. 1837; Freeman’s Journal, 8, 14 Feb. 1837.

Belligerent and possessed of a bullying manner, Jacob was noted as a duellist.15A Life Spent For Ireland. Selections from the journals of W.J. O’Neill Daunt. Edited by his daughter (1972), 232-3. In 1835 he attended Edward Southwell Ruthven, MP for Kildare, 1832-7, at his contest with the lord mayor of Dublin, alderman Arthur Perrin, near Clontarf following a clash on the hustings. He later assisted J. J. Murphy, Ruthven’s election agent, in his duel with James Haire, chairman of the Dublin Election Commission.16In both cases the parties discharged shots without effect: Morning Chronicle, 16, 19 Jan. 1835; Preston Chronicle, 24 Jan. 1835; O’Connell Correspondence, v. 257; Belfast Newsletter, 30 June 1835. Seconding at another duel in the Phoenix Park, it was reported that Jacob ‘brandished a handkerchief, and, pistol in hand’ threatened bystanders that if further unpleasant remarks were made about his charge, the person responsible ‘must fight him across the handkerchief’.17Hull Packet, 13 Nov. 1874, quoting Macmillan’s Magazine.

Jacob’s aggressive temperament led to his embroilment in a ruinous legal dispute with a fellow repealer named Christopher Eiffe, the managing director of the Caledonian Insurance office in Dublin and auditor for the lord mayor of Dublin. In May 1837 Jacob published a letter in which he imputed Eiffe’s conduct and character. Although he subsequently retracted the accusations, he was successfully prosecuted for libel. Jacob fled to England but in 1840 was remanded for debt. Unable to pay the damages, and in debt to his former commander, John Ross, for £1,200, he languished in the Queen’s Bench prison, London, until discharged by the insolvent debtors’ court in January 1844.18The Times, 3 July 1837; Freeman’s Journal, 21 Jan. 1840, 5 Feb. 1841, 5 Jan. 1844; Morning Chronicle, 12 Dec. 1843; Ross, Polar Pioneers, 268. Although Jacob appears subsequently to have become involved with the Anti-Corn Law League in 1846, little is known of his life thereafter.19W.S. Dowden (ed.), The Journal of Thomas Moore: 1843-1847 (1991), 2395. He died in Dublin in August 1868 and was succeeded in his estate by his four daughters, his two sons having predeceased him: John Jacob (1823-49), a civil servant of the East India Company, and Christian Jacob, a sailor in the merchant navy, had both died unmarried in India.20Jacob & Glascott, Narrative of the Families of Jacob, 91. My thanks to Stephen Lees for pointing to this valuable source on Jacob’s background.