Thomas Gainsborough, Portrait of William Jackson of Exeter, 1770. Oil on Canvas, 78 x 56 cm. Private Collection.
William Jackson of Exeter
(1730–1803)
Musician, painter and writer, Jackson of Exeter was one of Thomas Gainsborough's closest friends from the time of their first meeting in 1763 until at least the early 1780s. Their animated correspondence, fired by Gainsborough's passion for music, shows Gainsborough receiving help with musical problems, and in return giving Jackson advice on drawing. In the late 1760s Gainsborough tried to persuade Jackson to move from Exeter, perhaps to join him in Bath, but Jackson remained in his native city, and in 1777 was appointed organist at Exeter Cathedral, a post he held for the rest of his life. Around 1770, the year Gainsborough's portrait of his friend was shown at the Royal Academy, Jackson's interest in art developed to the point where he considered taking up painting professionally, and in 1771 he exhibited two of his own paintings at the RA.
Extract from a letter from William Jackson of Exeter to his son Thomas (1759–1828), dated 18 October 1783.
It's thanks to Jackson that we know of Gainsborough's visit to Antwerp in 1783 – a trip Gainsborough made in order to see works by Rubens. 'To say that he entertained me by a relation of his travels,' Jackson wrote to his son Thomas, 'would be saying nothing – if I could have writ as fast as he spoke, I could then present you with a second Sentimental Journey not a bit inferior to the first.' This letter, which turned up in the Vienna archive of Gertrude Jackson, a descendant of William, helped to transform our understanding of Gainsborough, who had previously been thought of as epitomising Englishness almost to the point of insularity.
Jackson himself undertook a fairly grand tour in the summer of 1785, when he travelled with a lifelong Exeter friend through France to Turin, where Jackson's son Thomas (diplomat and accomplished artist, who later escaped the clutches of Napoleon and ended up living in Vienna) was then chargé d'affaires. The narrative of this trip, accompanied by an interesting set of sketches, forms a substantial part of Jackson's autobiography, A Short Sketch of My Own Life (1802).
In his day, Jackson enjoyed a reputation as a composer of songs and church music, particularly a Te Deum, known simply as 'Jackson in F', which 'rang through every village church in England'. His most attractive songs include 'Time Hath Not Thinned My Flowing Hair' and 'Where the Bee Sucks' from Shakespeare's Tempest, an adaptation of a setting by Thomas Arne. His very successful comic opera, The Lord of the Manor, op. 12, with a libretto by General John Burgoyne (1722–92), was produced by R. B. Sheridan at Drury Lane in December 1780 and remained a favourite with the theatre-going public until the mid-nineteenth century.
To read the article on Jackson in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography click here.
Two pages from A Short Sketch of My Own Life (1802) by William Jackson of Exeter, published as a special issue of Gainsborough's House Review 1996/97.
'Hence reveller of tinsel wing' from Jackson of Exeter's comic opera, The Lord of the Manor (1780), performed by Malcolm Bothwell in 2010. Images: George Bickham, The Musical Entertainer, vol. 1 (1740).