Sir John Jackson

Sir John Jackson CVO FRSE LLD (4 February 1851 – 14 December 1919) was an eminent British engineer who in later life served as Unionist Member of Parliament for Devonport, from 1910–18, retiring from politics when his constituency was merged into another. He was proprietor of the major British engineering firm of John Jackson Ltd and the shipping company Westminster Shipping Co Ltd.

Born at 15 Coney Street in York, the youngest son of Edward Jackson (1789-1859), a goldsmith. His father was very elderly when he was born (62) and died when he was only eight, leaving him to be raised by his mother, Elizabeth daughter of David Ruddock of Horbury. He was educated at Holgate Seminary.

He was apprenticed to William Boyd, engineer in Newcastle from 1866 to 1868 before studying engineering at Edinburgh University under Peter Guthrie Tait. On Tait's death in 1901, Jackson endowed a research fund named after him. On graduation from Edinburgh he returned to Newcastle to work with his brother, William Edwin Jackson, a building contractor. His first major contract was Stobcross Docks in 1876.

His greatest engineering work in Britain from 1896-1907 was the extension of the Keyham Yard at Devonport Royal Dockyard at a cost of neary £4 million. During this period Jackson was a member of The Plymouth Institution (now The Plymouth Athenaeum) from 1897-1899.

In 1894 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his services to engineering. His proposers were Sir John Murray, Peter Guthrie Tait, Alexander Crum Brown, and Alexander Buchan.

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