George Hanbury Noble Jackson

George Hanbury Noble Jackson (GHNJ) was born on 20 December 1876, the son of the Reverend Robert Noble Jackson (1828-1920) and his second wife, Mary Reeves, a widow, daughter of Ensign Goodall of the Border Regiment. (Rathmore House, Winchcombe) (His first wife, Ellen Ada Gosset, had died in 1864). Robert Noble Jackson had served as a Naval Chaplain in the Baltic and the China seas. GHNJ had two sisters, Ada and Maud and all three siblings were devoted to their mother, who died on 24 March 1914, and who is referred to in the diaries as ‘our Darling’. Mary Jackson had been born in Dublin, and there are mentions in the diary of visits to Ballykeenan, possibly to relatives on her side of the family.

Within the family and by his friends, GHNJ was called ‘Peter’, and items such as his hip flask, cigarette case and match holder are engraved with this name. The 'Hanbury' in his name appears to be in honour of Charles Hanbury-Tracy, 4^th Baron of Tudely, who helped Robert Noble Jackson to obtain the living of Gretton before serving as Vicar of Winchcombe.

After Sandhurst, GHNJ was commissioned on 20 February 1897, aged 20, and joined the 1^st Border Regiment the following month as Second Lieutenant. In 1898, he served as adjutant of a detachment in Cyprus, and in October 1899 landed in South Africa with the 1^st Battalion Border Regiment, detailed as Adjutant Imperial Light Infantry (ILI), starting to raise this Battalion on 4 November 1899. The only other Regular was Major Nash, detailed as C.O. A passing reference to GHNJ can be found in a letter of March 7^th 1900, posted on the Anglo Boer War website by a descendant of the letter-writer (message #21906, posted in 2014) which mentions that ‘our Adjutant, a boy named Jackson, of the Border Regt is in hospital at Maritzburg – a fever and dysentery’.

Becoming Lieutenant on 8 August 1900, GHNJ served with the ILI except for a short period as Staff Officer to a column of the three arms, until it was disbanded in August 1901, when he joined the South African Constabulary. He served as Staff Officer with a mobile column of this force until the end of the war and was in charge of a Police District for a few months during peace time. Subsequently Staff at Headquarters of Force and Staff at Headquarters of Police Division until 1905, he returned thereafter to the Border Regiment, where he was appointed Adjutant, then Captain from 15 March 1907.

GHNJ returned to Staff College on 22 January 1912 and a brief CV mentions that he ‘obtained Certificate’.

At the start of WW1, he served with General Sir Bruce Hamilton, filling the vacancy of Brigadier General on the General Staff for a few weeks. In January 1914, he was appointed GSO3 to 13^th Division and joined ANZAC 2^nd Australian Division on 13 September 1915 as GSO2. The 13^th Division was included under Major-General F C Shaw, C.B., in IX Corps of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force August 1915. He left Lemnos (Mudros Bay) for the peninsula on 15 July 1915, arriving at 4.30 a.m. on 16^th, returning to Lemnos on 29 July and rejoining action on the peninsula on 4 August. In October 1915, he was in charge of writing up the Division’s official War Diary for a few weeks, to which he refers in his own diaries.

His diaries describe the detail of life, conditions and action in Gallipoli and on the Somme, but do not expand on personal events such as his marriage on 15 December 1917 to Eileen Dudgeon, younger daughter of Hume Dudgeon of Merville, Bootersville, Ireland, during his leave from France, and the birth of their son, Frederick Hume Jackson, in September 1918.

He held a brief post-war position with Ulster Constabulary, and from 1923-27 commanded the 7^th Infantry Brigade. From 1930-31, he was ADC to the King, and from 1931-35 commander of the 49^th (West Riding) Division of the Territorial Army, retiring in 1935. He rejoined the army in 1941-45 on the general list, with the rank of Lieutenant.

After Eileen’s death in 1953, he moved to Kenya, to join his sisters, and farmed at Kapkong Farm until his own death on 4 September 1958.