Local History
Verno & Admiral Jackson
Intrigue. You can’t beat it. I was intrigued by the story of an Admiral Jackson, who was not only a famed naval figure, but had been immortalised in a novel, and lived in Christchurch. So the story went. When my Christchurch book was published, I’d found out little about him, or his home, said to be, ‘up Roeshot Hill’. I mentioned him pithily. ‘Captain Frederick Marryat’s novel ‘Peter Simple’ (1834) about a young British midshipman during the Napoleonic Wars is reputed by the family to be based on the life of Admiral George Vernon Jackson, of ‘Verno’, Christchurch’. On many journeys down Roeshot Hill I clocked ‘Verno Lane’ and intended to investigate.
Peter Simple’, 1st edition title page, 1834
Jackson (1787-1876) was born in Surrey. We know that his father was a purser in the Navy, which was decidedly secondrank, maybe explaining why the admiral was evasive about his pater’s naval career. It was a fairly large family, as Jackson had four brothers (all served in the Navy) and four sisters. There wasn’t much money about as Jackson’s mother was living in poverty after Jackson Snr died. Jackson Jnr’s wealth in later life was self-made.
Jackson first went to sea, as a midshipman, aged 14, in 1801, and first saw action in the West Indies, aboard the ‘Carysfort’. More crew died from yellow fever than enemy action, but Jackson, who was afflicted, was lucky. He also survived deserting his next ship, the ‘St Lucia’ and its tyrannical captain. Jackson was still in North American waters come 1805, by now on the ‘Cleopatra’. It was the year of Trafalgar. He also went overboard when a massive wave hit his ship, but was luckily grabbed ‘by the hair’ and saved. It seems someone watched over him. Jackson soon had his first command as well, the ‘Porgey’. Reciprocation followed when Jackson leapt into the water himself to try and save a drowning man, an act of heroism which may have influenced his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1809. Jackson became a POW in December 1809 after an action in which his ship, the ‘Junon’, was pummelled, with 20 men killed.
Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848), the author of ‘Peter Simple’, by John Simpson, 1826 (National Portrait Gallery).
The name ‘Verno’ lives on with Verno Lane, Roeshot Hill.