Author: Jackson, William
Biography:
JACKSON, William (c. 1737-1795: DIB)
He was born, probably in Ireland, the youngest of the four sons of an officer of the prerogative court in Dublin. His mother’s surname at birth was Gore. He is said to have been ordained in the Church of England and to have been a popular preacher at Tavistock Chapel, London. As he is absent in CCEd, he may instead have been ordained in the Irish established church. He is believed to have studied at Oxford, but there is no entry in Alumni Oxonienses. He was in Ireland in 1766 to 1767 as private secretary to lord lieutenant the earl of Bristol. In the mid-1770s, he commenced employment at the Public Ledger, probably as editor. Jackson is remembered in theatre history for his attacks on the comic actor and theatre manager Samuel Foote. Acting as confidential agent to Elizabeth Chudleigh, duchess of Kingston, whose first husband was a brother of the earl of Bristol, in the Public Ledger in May 1776, and in his satirical poem Sodom and Onan, published 22 June 1776, he accused Foote of sodomy. His motive appears to have been to punish Foote for publicly embarrassing the countess by publishing A Trip to Calais, a play in which Foote brutally satirized the duchess as “Lady Crocodile.” In a revised version of the play, The Capuchin, (1776), Foote satirized Jackson as “Dr Viper,” editor of the Scandalous Chronicle. In Mar. 1784, Jackson shifted his employment, probably as editor, to the Morning Post. Four years later, he followed the duchess to Paris. He returned to England in 1794, now as a spy for the French government. In early 1795, he was arrested, charged with treason, tried, and found guilty. Before sentence could be passed, he died by his own hand on 30 Apr. 1795. He was buried in St Michan’s cemetery, Dublin, on 3 May 1795. He had a son by his second marriage. There is a full chapter on Jackson in John Taylor’s (q.v.) Records of My Life. (ODNB 29 Oct. 2023; DIB 29 Oct 2023; CCEd 1 Nov. 2023; Alumni Oxonienses; “Trial of the Reverend William Jackson,” Walker’s Hibernian Magazine [Aug. 1795], 161-67; R. R. Madden, The United Irishmen [1857], 1: 552–68; F. MacDermot, “The Jackson episode in 1794,” Studies, xxvii [1938], 77–92; M. J. Kinservik, “Satire, Censorship, and Sodomy in Samuel Foote’s ‘The Capuchin’ (1776),” Review of English Studies n.s. 54:217 [Nov. 2003], 639-60) JC