Richard Claverhouse Jebb was born on the 27th of August, 1841, at Dundee in the house of his grandfather the Dean of Brechin, where his parents were then upon a visit. He came of gentle stock on both sides. The Jebbs of Woodborough in Nottinghamshire were prominent from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Towards the end of the seventeenth century a part of the family settled at Mansfield, in the same county, where they soon became noted for eminence in literary work. “Few families,” says Mr Nichols in his Literary Anecdotes, “have produced more persons connected with the literary history of the eighteenth century.” Short lives of these are given in Maunder's Biographical Dictionary; and a Memoir of Dr John Jebb, F.R.S., F.S.A., of Peterhouse, Cambridge, whom the Bishop of Limerick characterized as his very honest and able but wrongheaded and heretical cousin, is prefixed to a collection of his miscellaneous works.

Samuel Jebb, the grandfather of Dr John Jebb, and of Sir Richard Jebb, Bart., Physician to George III, was also the direct ancestor of Richard Claverhouse Jebb, the subject of these memoirs. He was born in 1670, and married in 1690 Elizabeth, only daughter of Richard Gilliver, Esq., of Bamfield, Yorkshire, whose wife was Amelia de Witt, daughter of Jacob de Witt, Burgomaster of Dort, and sister of John de Witt, the Grand Pensionary of Holland, and of Cornelius de Witt, Admiral of the Fleet, who were murdered on the 14th of August, 1672. On account of the disturbances of the time, Jacob de Witt left Holland during the lifetime of his famous sons and came to England.