Admiral Vernon Jackson

A carte-de-visite portrait of Admiral Vernon Jackson (1787-1876).

According to Boase’s Modern English Biography (1892), Admiral George Vernon Jackson was born at Chalwood in Surrey on 13 July 1787, the eldest son of George Jackson of the Isle of Wight. He became a Midshipman in the Royal Navy in 1801. He went on half-pay in February 1828, was promoted to Captain on 23 November 1841, and retired an Admiral on 30 July 1875. He is said to have been the original of O’Brien in Frederick Marryat’s seafaring novel Peter Simple, first published in serial form in 1833.

Admiral George Vernon Jackson died at Vernon, Christchurch, Hampshire, on 18 April 1876.

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London on 5 July 1862.