J. Wilfrid Jackson

John Wilfrid Jackson (15 June 1880 – 1978) was a British conchologist, archaeologist and geologist.

Jackson was born at Scarborough, North Yorkshire to Thomas and Mary Jackson of York. The family later moved to Manchester. At age 12 he worked as office boy at the Clarion newspaper. After a year he secured a job at Ashworth & Silkstone, a cotton spinning firm. In about 1895 he was employed in the wool industry at Kolp, Kullman & Co.

Jackson's interest in conchology was encouraged by his future father-in-law, Robert Standen, an assistant keeper in the Zoology Department at Manchester Museum. After being nominated by Standen, Jackson became a member of the Conchological Society in 1901, and befriended many well-known conchologists.

Jackson continued to study conchology, and also completed certificate courses in shorthand and languages at the Lower Mosley Street Schools from 1902-1904. He began publishing articles in the Journal of Conchology, and in 1906 he began taking classes in geology at the Technical School.

In 1904 he was elected to the Council of the Conchological Society, and he remained an officer until 1945, serving as Secretary for almost 30 years and one year as President. He played a key role in recording the organization's history, writing many obituaries as well as biographies of both Captain Thomas Brown and Martin Lister. He wrote five papers on ‘ethno-conchology’, which were published in 1916 in the Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. These were the basis of his book, Shells as Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture (1917, Manchester University Press).

Jackson was the author of more than 90 published works on Recent Mollusca and Recent Brachiopoda, and he published reports about material collected on the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, the British Antarctic Expedition (Scott’s ‘Terra Nova’), and the Siboga Expedition.

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