Thomas Jenyns of Hayes, Middle Sussex, England, was born in 1671 and died in 1696. He was the son of Roger Jenyns, Esq., of Hayes. He entered Clare College at Cambridge in 1688, gaining a B.A. He entered again for an M.A. in 1696 but died that year, at 25, on May 12.

Romilly Jenkins specialized in Byzantine and Modern Greek scholarship, authoring many works on the subject. He began his studies at the British School in Athens in 1933 becoming assistant director and then a member of the Board Managing Committee in 1936. That same year he became Lewis Gibb Lecturer of Modern Greek at the University of Cambridge. Although he worked for the British Foreign Service during World War II, he held the Cambridge post until 1946 when he accepted the Koraes professorship of modern Greek and Byzantine history, language and literature at King’s College in London, serving also as honorary professor of classical archaeology. In 1960 he moved to the Dumbarton Oaks Institute in Washington, D.C. where he was a professor of history and Byzantine literature.