Family and Education

Offices Held

Chamberlain, Nottingham 1582-3, sheriff 1584-5, common councilman 1587, mayor 1598-9, 1605-6, 1612-13, 1619-20, alderman Aug. 1595, commr. subsidy by 1608.

Biography

Jackson was a mercer, from a well-known family of Nottingham tradesmen. In common with others on the corporation he was occasionally convicted of infringing the borough bye-laws. In the sessions of 1592-3 he was presented for ‘keeping in his hands’ poultry houses which did ‘great hurt’ to the town. Other presentments concerned the building of a shop or stall on the corporation’s ground (‘and we say that he ought to pay rent to the town for the same’), the neglect of his duty in the common work (probably providing for road mending), and the illegal cutting of the town’s brushwood. The corporation books give no indication of his wealth, although by 1605 he was renting at least one piece of land from the town at £3 rent. However, he was obviously in comfortable circumstances: he contributed a corselet to the 1596-7 provision of arms, and for the 1608-9 subsidy his assessment was on £4 in goods, one of the highest in Nottingham. His name also appears as holding several offices in the borough. He was involved in the discussions of 1604 which reorganised the council, and in 1612 and again in 1616, on the occasion of James I’s visit to Nottingham, he was one of those responsible for supervising the clearing up of the highways on the royal route.1

The burgesses for Nottingham were appointed to a committee concerning an amendment to the wages of spinners and weavers on 10 Nov. 1597. Jackson was named to the monopolies committee on the same day, and to a committee concerning the double payment of debts on shop books on 2 Dec. He is last heard of in 1620.2

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes

• 1. Nottingham Recs. iv. 214, 238, 243, 253, 258, 268-70, 273, 278, 294, 303, 309, 318, 334, 336-7, 343, 360, 370, 421-31; Thoroton, Notts. ed. Thoresby, ii. 49-50.
• 2. D’Ewes, 555, 566; Nottingham Recs. iv. 370.