Thomas Graham Jackson


Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, 1st Baronet was one of the most distinguished English architects of his generation. He is best remembered for his work at Oxford for Oxford Military College as well as the University, notably: the Examination Schools, most of Hertford College, much of Brasenose College, ranges at Trinity College and Somerville College, and the Acland Nursing Home in North Oxford. Much of his career was devoted to the architecture of education and he worked extensively for various schools, notably Giggleswick and his own alma mater Brighton College. Jackson designed the former town hall in Tipperary Town, Ireland. He also worked on many parish churches and the college chapel at the University of Wales, Lampeter. He is also famous for designing the chapel at Radley College. The former City of Oxford High School for Boys in George Street, Oxford, Oxford is another building designed by him.
He was educated at Brighton College and then Wadham College, Oxford, of which he wrote a history, before being articled as a pupil to Sir George Gilbert Scott.
Jackson was a prolific author of carefully researched works in architectural history, often illustrated with sketches made during his extensive travels. Jackson's travels in Dalmatia, in which he was accompanied by his intrepid wife, would result in Dalmatia, the Quarnero and Istria with Cettigne in Montenegro and the island of Grado, published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 1887. It remains today a fundamental source of knowledge of the geography, art, architecture and social life of Dalmatia in those years.
He and Norman Shaw edited "Architecture, A Profession or an Art" published in 1892, to which William H. White replied by publishing "The Architect and his artists, an essay to assist the public in considering the question is architecture a profession or an art".
This had been part of the course of events which resulted in the passing of the Architects Acts, 1931 to 1938 which established the statutory Register of Architects and monopolistic restrictions on the use of the vernacular word "architect", imposed with threat of penalty on prosecution for infringement.
In 1919, Jackson wrote a collection of supernatural stories, Six Ghost Stories. These stories were written under the influence of M. R. James, and Jackson expressed admiration for James' work in the book's introduction.
A stone memorial tablet to Sir Thomas was erected in the chapel of Brighton College, part of which he had built as a First World War memorial in 1922–23. For that school's chapel he had also designed many memorials during the 1880s and 1890s. The other concentrated group of mural tablets by Jackson is to be found in the antechapel of Wadham College in Oxford.
Jackson's pupils and assistants included Evelyn Hellicar.
Jackson was created a Baronet, of Eagle House in Wimbledon in the County of Surrey, on 10 February 1913.