JACKSON, Henry Mather (1831-1881), of The Manor House, Birkenhead, Cheshire; 61 Portland Place, Westminster, Middlesex; Llantilio Court, near Abergavenny, Monmouthshire

The heir of a famous Victorian entrepreneur, Jackson was a barrister and a ‘man of great legal learning’.1Liverpool Mercury, 10 Mar. 1881. A ‘staunch and hearty Liberal’, he made little impact in his first spell in the House, which only lasted nine months.2M. Stenton, Who’s who of British Members of Parliament (1976), i. 209. Jackson’s entry in Stenton conflates him with his son and namesake, the 3rd baronet, who stood unsuccessfully at the 1885 and 1886 general elections. The Times fairly noted that his ‘political career had not been so steadily and uniformly prosperous as his progress at the bar; but it was on the whole successful’.3The Times, 10 Mar. 1881. An incomplete draft parliamentary biography of Jackson, written as part of Josiah Wedgwood’s embryonic History of Parliament project in the 1930s, commented that he ‘was a fairly frequent speaker upon legal questions’.4Wedgwood Archive, History of Parliament Trust.

Jackson’s father William Jackson (1805-76) was a ‘hard-headed, self-made man’.5Gentleman’s Magazine (1869), i. 460. He was one of the founders of the town of Birkenhead in the 1840s and thereafter was best-known as one of the great Victorian railway contractors. He was Liberal MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, 1847-65, and North Derbyshire, 1865-68. His son and heir was groomed for a legal career after his education at Harrow and Oxford, where, through his membership of Oxford Union, he gained ‘considerable experience and repute as a debater’.6Liverpool Mercury, 10 Mar. 1881.

After serving as a barrister on the north Wales circuit and in the Palatine court in Lancashire, Jackson moved to London, where ‘for many years he was one of the leaders of the Chancery bar, enjoying a large and lucrative practice’.7Ibid. His speciality was ‘company work’ or commercial and equity law. This included disentangling the legal complications involved in failed businesses, disposing of assets and residuary dividends, most notably after the collapse of the Overend Gurney bank in 1867, and also patent cases.8The Times, 10 Mar. 1881. It was said that ‘on the question of limited liability there was no lawyer at the bar who had greater experience’.9Liverpool Mercury, 10 Mar. 1881.

Jackson stood as a Liberal candidate for Birkenhead at the 1865 general election, when he advocated enfranchising a greater proportion of working men to stabilise the political system.10Liverpool Mercury, 13 June 1865. He opposed the secret ballot without a ‘readjustment of constituencies and a redistribution of seats’.11Liverpool Mercury, 23 June 1865. Although he was an Anglican, Jackson backed the abolition of church rates.12Liverpool Mercury, 13 June 1865. Despite a spirited campaign he lost by over 1,000 votes to his father’s old business rival John Laird, prompting him to remark: ‘I have been most soundly beaten’.13Liverpool Mercury, 13 July 1865.

However, Jackson had impressed Liberals in Coventry, where he was brought forward at the 1867 by-election after local candidates declined. In his speeches, Jackson argued that the Liberal party was the sole originator of progressive measures. Speaking of the representation of the people bill, Jackson contended that ‘it was not to Disraeli, but to Gladstone and Bright, backed as they were by the great Liberal party, that the country was indebted for all that was really liberal in this bill’.14Birmingham Daily Post, 20 July 1867. He was dismissive of Conservative attempts to rebrand themselves as ‘Liberal Conservatives’, and appropriate ‘our clothes and appear as Liberals’.15Birmingham Daily Post, 19 July 1867. Jackson also expressed support for the opening of universities to non-Anglicans, the establishment of courts of arbitration for disputes between workers and employers, and strongly criticised the Irish church. He did not support the repeal of the 1860 Anglo-French commercial treaty, which many Coventry ribbon weavers blamed for their distress, but declared that he would support its modification to achieve greater reciprocity.16Birmingham Daily Post, 22 July 1867. He was elected by a comfortable margin ahead of his Conservative rival.

Although his experience at the bar made Jackson a ‘fluent and effective speaker’ he made no speeches during his first spell in the Commons.17Liverpool Mercury, 10 Mar. 1881. His only votes of any note were on the divisions on the Lords amendments to the 1867 representation of the people bill. Jackson voted with his father and the majority of Liberals in reinserting a £5 copyhold franchise and unsuccessfully opposing the minority clause, 8 Aug. 1867. He was unseated, 14 Mar. 1868, after his agent was found guilty of bribery, although Jackson was cleared of any corruption.18PP 1867-68 (165), viii. 145, 148.

Jackson was defeated for Coventry at the 1868 general election. He took silk in 1873 and was returned for Coventry in 1874 and re-elected in 1880. On his father’s death in 1876, he inherited the baronetcy and the Llantilio Court estate in Monmouthshire, comprising 3,137 acres with an annual rental of £4,200.19J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. D. Spring (1971 edn.), 239. He served as vice-president of the Birkenhead, and president of the Monmouthshire and Marylebone Liberal Associations. In the last capacity he took a keen interest in school board elections, particularly the success of female candidates.20The Times, 10 Mar. 1881; Liverpool Mercury, 10 Mar. 1881.

In early 1881, having long suffered from gallstones, Jackson was afflicted with a ‘cold and liver complaint, complicated by other affectations’.21The Times, 10 Mar. 1881; Liverpool Mercury, 10 Mar. 1881. Advised by his doctors that he must sacrifice either his parliamentary career or his legal practice, Jackson’s appointment as a high court judge, 2 Mar. 1881, was ‘extremely welcome’ to him.22The Times, 10 Mar. 1881. However, he was too ill to issue a farewell address to his constituents or to take his oath before the lord chancellor and died six days later without taking his judicial seat.23Birmingham Daily Post, 9 Mar. 1881; Liverpool Mercury, 10 Mar. 1881. On his death, the baronetcy, Llantilio Court and a personal estate of £160,000 passed to Jackson’s eldest son Sir Henry Mather Jackson, 3rd baronet (1855-1942), who unsuccessfully contested Monmouthshire South as a Liberal in 1885 and Flint boroughs as a Liberal Unionist the following year.24Calendar of Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration (1881), 31; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), pt. II, pp. 90, 175.