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
Edward Jenner called because it met in the parlour of the Fleece Inn, Rodborough (in Gloucestershire). Members dined together and read papers on medical subjects. Jenner contributed papers on angina pectoris, ophthalmia, and cardiac valvular disease and commented on cowpox. He also belonged to a similar society which met in Alveston, near Bristol. He became a master mason on 30 December 1802, in Lodge of Faith and Friendship #449. From 1812–1813, he served as worshipful master of Royal Berkeley Lodge of Faith and Friendship. Edward Jenner was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1788, following his publication of a careful study