Family and Education

b. 1761, 1st s. of George Jackson of Enniscoe by Jane, da. of James Cuffe, MP [I], of Ballinrobe. educ. Trinity, Dublin 7 July 1777, aged 16. m. Sept. 1783, Maria, da. and h. of William Rutledge of Foxford, co. Mayo, 6s. 7da. suc. fa. 1789.

Offices Held

MP [I] 1789-96, 1797-1800.

Col. N. Mayo militia 1793-d.

Biography

Col. Jackson supported government as a Member of the Irish house of commons sitting for Coleraine on his own interest, until bought out by Lord Waterford. In 1797 he was returned for his county at the instigation of his kinsman Lord Tyrawley and under the aegis of the Sligo interest. He supported the Union, for which he was promised a surveyorship on Dublin Quay worth £350 p.a. for his brother-in-law John Ormsby. At Westminster, apart apparently from a minority vote on the Ferrol expedition, 19 Feb. 1801, he supported government, speaking in favour of the Irish martial law bill, 16 Mar. 1801. The chief secretary described him and his colleague in October, when they left Ireland for the parliamentary session, as ‘old and steady friends of government’.1

By then Jackson was preparing for a contest, in which he expected government support. At the same time he applied for a baronetcy for his brother-in-law O’Hara Hamilton of Antrim. Other ‘curious’ and ‘clumsy’ patronage requests followed and on 6 July 1802, soon after the dissolution, he asked for a baronetcy for himself, which application was endorsed ‘can only be taken into consideration’. By 16 July he had come to terms with his opponent Dillon Lee and the lord lieutenant was informed by his colleague, Lord Sligo’s brother, that Jackson had

... so represented to Lord Sligo the state of his family and fortune, the pressing importunities made to him to apply to your Excellency for a multiplicity of honours and emoluments which he could not venture to mention to you, obliging him either to relinquish his property to plunder, or stand a contest with a constituent body of nearly 12,000 voters, that he could not, however reluctantly, oppose his accommodation with Mr Dillon, by which, as I am told, Col. Jackson comes in for an English borough.2

This part of the agreement was not carried out and Jackson was never again in Parliament. He died in 1805.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: Arthur Aspinall

Notes

• 1. Castlereagh Corresp. ii. 127; HO 100/103, Union engagements; Sidmouth mss, Browne to Addington, 22 Oct. 1801.
• 2. PRO 30/9/1, pt. 3/3, Jackson to Abbot, 14, 16 Oct. 1801; pt. 3/4, Marsden to Abbot, 27 Mar. 1802; Add. 35701, f. 246; 35735, f. 194; 35782, ff. 27-28.