John Jackson was born in London, the son of George Jackson of North Reston, and spent his childhood in Lincolnshire, going to school at Louth where Tennyson was among his fellows. He matriculated at St. Catherine’s Hall, Cambridge, in 1825, but left after a year to study at University College, London. He was, however, granted the Cambridge M.B. degree in 1830. In the same year, he joined the Bengal Medical Service. During the next twenty-five years, he held a number of appointments including those of presidency surgeon, first professor of medicine and clinical medicine at the Calcutta Medical College, and physician to the College Hospital. He also founded a hospital at Ghazeepore for diseases of the eye and sat on a committee to investigate anaesthesia by mesmerism. He was highly popular there. After retiring in 1855, he practised in the West End of London, at Hendon, and at Frant in Kent. He published a short work on tetanus in India in 1856. He died at Brighton.

G H Brown

[B.M.J., 1887; D. G. Crawford, Hist. of the Indian Medical Service, 1914, ii, 154; Roll of I.M.S., 102; Al.Cantab., iii, 538; Plarr, I, 600]