Thomas Jackson (1827 - 1904)

Born 30 Jan 1827 in Dublin, Ireland [uncertain]

Ancestors

Son of Thomas Jackson and Anna Maria (Bagnall) Jackson

Husband of Mary (Gubb) Jackson — married about 1855 in Melbourne, Victoria [uncertain]

Descendants

Died 9 Dec 1904 at age 77 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Janie Kimble [send private message]

Biography

Info below is research of Graham Bernard Jackson of Australia emailed to Janie Jackson Kimble: "In December, 1853, Thomas married Mary Gubb from Topsham in Devon, at Mt Blackwood in Victoria, Australia. In 1860 he and his wife and 2 children returned to England where Thomas worked with his brother in law, John Millikin, in the medical instrument business. Mary Gubb Jackson, died in 1869 after having some 8 or 9 children of which only 2 survived early childhood – Thomas my grandfather, and his brother William who was born in London. Thomas, with his 2 sons returned to Australia in the late 1870’s and established a medical instrument business in Melbourne. This was the start of “our “ Jackson family in Australia. As far as I am aware this branch of the Jackson family has not extended beyond Australia and New Zealand. There is oral history the family had relatives in America but we do not know where in America. There is also oral history that the family had links to Drogheda, a town North of Dublin, where a Jackson forebear occupied a position of some prominence. . .

"In 1860 my Gt Grandfather, and his wife and 2 children returned from Australia, to London where Thomas worked with his brother in law in the Millikin medical instrument business. Thomas is listed in the London census of 1872 as a medical instrument maker – we also have a card – part of a Millikin business card to support this.

"We understand representatives of the Millikin family subsequently moved to America. We are aware of the existence in the US of a major medical products company by the name of Millikin and was interested to see one of their subsidiaries was named Mayer Distributors. As a child I recall my Grandfather referring to relatives in the US but don’t recall where or by what name etc.

"Thomas Jackson - our Great Grand Father - then returned to Australia in the late 1870’s where he established a medical instrument business in Melbourne under the name of 'Mayer, Meltzer and Jackson of London, Johannesburg and Melbourne'. It is interesting to note that he brought to Australia certain family memorabilia that one would have thought would have gone to his elder brother William – the portrait of his father, the Family Bible, the letter from the dead father and possibly other items I am not aware of. The letter from the dead father is particularly significant as it was directed to the eldest son, William. This suggests the elder brother William died without issue.

"This is the Thomas Jackson who came to Australia in the early 1850’s and went gold prospecting. We are not sure of the exact date or ship he arrived on as every second ship seemed to have at least one Thomas Jackson on board – probably arrived in the early 1850’s and subsequently married a woman from Devon, England at Mt Blackwood in Victoria. Her name was Mary Gubb and she came to Australia in 1853(?). Two of her sisters had migrated to Melbourne earlier. An important point – we have been unable to establish if Thomas Jackson knew her before coming to Australia or if he only met her after her arrival in Australia. So does he have any Devon family history or not.

"Plymouth in Devon is not far from the East Coast of Ireland and there were a lot of links between Dublin and Devon. So did our Jacksons come from Devon ? What we do know is that there were Jacksons in the area Mary Gubb came from – a town called Topsham - and some of them were merchants. Topsham today is something of a sleepy hollow but prior to the introduction of a rail line to nearby Exeter in the early 1840’s, Topsham was second only to London as the busiest seaport in the UK. Amongst the cargo handled through Topsham was coal from the North of England. Thomas Jackson of Dublin was a Coal Factor – that is the middle man who arranged the finance and logistics of getting coal from the mine head to the ultimate destination - where it was sold to vendors who on sold to consumers.

"Another product the merchants of Topsham were involved in was the lucrative cod trade from the fishing fields off the coast of Newfoundland. Each season the merchant’s boats left Topsham and picked up Irish labourers to work in the fishing sheds that processed the cod in Newfoundland. The cod was sold in England and also traded into the Mediterranean for goods to trade in turn in the UK. Soon some of the merchants settled in Newfoundland rather than travel back and forth. We know this included Jacksons from Topsham in places like Trepassey in NFL and it is likely that some of these could have moved South to warmer climes.

"We know that Thomas the gold prospector developed a very close relationship with Mary Gubb’s family in Topsham, whilst at the same time we cannot find any later link to his Jackson family or to Dublin where he was born. In 1934 his son (my Grandfather) visited England and he included Topsham in Devon in his itinerary. His comment on his return to Australia was that the only relatives he found were in the grave yard at Topsham. My Grandfather apparently made no mention of Jackson relatives in England nor did he visit Dublin or Ireland.

"His wife Mary died in 1869, leaving him with 2 sons – the only children to survive infancy out of at least 9 children she bore. These two were my Grandfather Thomas and his younger brother William. Thomas was sent to a boarding school run by Mary’s brother, Edwin Gubb , and William was looked after by a spinster named Frances Rhoda Lucy Jackson in Topsham. Many years later, on the other side of the world, William named a daughter Rhoda Lucy Jackson."

Sources

• 1861 England Census; Class: RG 9; Piece: 324; Folio: 49; Page: 41; GSU roll: 542615
• 1871 England Census; Class: RG10; Piece: 409; Folio: 29; Page: 7; GSU roll: 824627
• Australia Marriage Index, 1788-1950
• Family Bible Records per Graham Jackson
• A relationship is confirmed by a triangulated group consisting of E. Goodbody Gedmatch T320821 and H Benzies Gedmatch T887928 and B. Jackson Gedmatch T756108 sharing a segment of about 32.5 segments on Chromosome 5.