 The son of Thomas Jervis, he was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, though he did not graduate, apparently preferring to take a commission as an officer in the British Army.However, after two years he returned to study law being called to the bar by the Middle Temple in 1824.Jervis followed his father onto the Oxford circuit and the Chester and north Wales circuit and built a substantial practice, being appointed a postman of the Court of Exchequer.