Edward Jenner Jenner was born on 17 May 1749 (6 May Old Style) in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, as the eighth of nine children. His father, the Reverend Stephen Jenner, was the vicar of Berkeley, so Jenner received a strong basic education. He went to school in Wotton-under-Edge and Cirencester. During this time, he was inoculated for smallpox, which had a lifelong effect upon his general health. (Crucially this meant that he underwent variolation and not vaccination.) At the age of 14, he was apprenticed for seven years to Daniel Ludlow, a surgeon of Chipping Sodbury, South Gloucestershire, where he gained most of the
Frank Jenner into his home for tea and told him about the gospel. Jenner converted to Christianity and, when he went home, told Jessie that she was a sinner bound for hell and therefore in need of salvation. According to Wilson's biography of Jenner, Jessie thought that Jenner had become manic or insane. They had a young daughter named Ann by this point and Jenner was gambling so much that he was not providing for his family. For both of these reasons, Jessie left Jenner and moved to Corowa to work on a farm, taking Ann with her. She said that she