# Derek Jackson

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**Derek Ainslie Jackson**, [OBE](/source/Order_of_the_British_Empire), [DFC](/source/Distinguished_Flying_Cross_(United_Kingdom)), [AFC](/source/Air_Force_Cross_(United_Kingdom)), [FRS](/source/Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society)[1] (23 June 1906 – 20 February 1982) was a British physicist.[2][3]

## Biography

Derek Jackson was born in 1906, the son of Welsh businessman [Sir Charles Jackson](/source/Charles_James_Jackson). He was one of a pair of twins; his twin brother was Charles Vivian Jackson (1906–1936), known as Vivian. Derek was educated at [Rugby School](/source/Rugby_School) and [Trinity College, Cambridge](/source/Trinity_College,_Cambridge), where he took a first in part I of the natural sciences [tripos](/source/Tripos) and graduated with honours in 1927.[1] Jackson showed early promise in the field of spectroscopy under the guidance of [Professor Frederick Lindemann](/source/Frederick_Lindemann,_1st_Viscount_Cherwell), making the first quantitative determination of a [nuclear magnetic spin](/source/Magnetic_spin) using [atomic spectroscopy](/source/Atomic_spectroscopy) to measure the [hyperfine structure](/source/Hyperfine_splitting) of [caesium](/source/Caesium). His scientific research at Oxford did not, however, interfere with his other great passion – [steeplechase](/source/Steeplechase_(horse_racing)) riding – which led him from the [foxhunting](/source/Foxhunting) field to his first ride in the [Grand National](/source/Grand_National) of 1935. A keen huntsman, he took up the sport again after the war, riding in two more Nationals, in 1947 and 1948.[4]

In World War II, Jackson distinguished himself in the RAF, making an important scientific contribution to Britain's air defences and to the bomber offensive. He flew more than a thousand hours as a navigator, many of them in combat in night-fighters, with [No. 604 (County of Middlesex) Squadron](/source/No._604_Squadron_RAF) based at [RAF Middle Wallop](/source/RAF_Middle_Wallop). He was decorated with the [DFC](/source/Distinguished_Flying_Cross_(United_Kingdom)), [AFC](/source/Air_Force_Cross_(United_Kingdom)) and [OBE](/source/Order_of_the_British_Empire). This war record stands in contrast to his stated desire at the war's inception to keep Britain out of fighting Germany. For the rest of his life, Jackson, appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1947, lived as a [tax exile](/source/Tax_exile) in Ireland, France and Switzerland. He continued his spectroscopic work in France at the [Centre national de la recherche scientifique](/source/Centre_national_de_la_recherche_scientifique), and was made a [chevalier de la Légion d'honneur](/source/L%C3%A9gion_d'honneur).

A "rampant bisexual",[5][6] Jackson was married six times, and also lived for three years with Angela Culme-Seymour, the half-sister of Janetta Woolley, one of his wives. The others included a daughter of [Augustus John](/source/Augustus_John), [Pamela Mitford](/source/Pamela_Mitford) (one of the Mitford sisters), a princess (the widow of [Ernest zu Hohenlohe](/source/Ernest_zu_Hohenlohe)), and several femmes fatales including [Barbara Skelton](/source/Barbara_Skelton) (in whose obituary in *The Independent* is noted her remark that it was "not for love that (she) married Professor Jackson", he being identified as "the millionaire son of the founder of the *[News of the World](/source/News_of_the_World)*").[7]

## Books and publications

- Jackson, D. A. (1928). "Hyperfine structure in the arc spectrum of caesium and nuclear rotation". *Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A*. **121** (787): 432. [Bibcode:1928RSPSA.121..432J](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1928RSPSA.121..432J). [doi:10.1098/rspa.1928.0207](https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.1928.0207)

## References

1. Kuhn, H. G. & Hartley, Christopher (1983). "Derek Ainslie Jackson. 23 June 1906 – 20 February 1982". *[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society](/source/Biographical_Memoirs_of_Fellows_of_the_Royal_Society)*. **29**: 268–296. [doi:10.1098/rsbm.1983.0012](https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.1983.0012). [JSTOR 769805](https://www.jstor.org/stable/769805)

1. Bleaney, B. (2001). "Derek Ainslie Jackson (1906–1982): Some recollections of a great European spectroscopist". *Notes and Records of the Royal Society*. **55** (2): 285–287. [doi:10.1098/rsnr.2001.0144](https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2001.0144). [JSTOR 532101](https://www.jstor.org/stable/532101). [S2CID 73248246](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:73248246)

1. Jack Morrell (2004). "Jackson, Derek Ainslie (1906–1982)". [doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31279](https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/31279)

1. Hodgkin, Alan L. (1994). *Chance & design: reminiscences of science in peace and war*. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. p. 196. ISBN 978-0521400992.

1. Simon Courtauld (2007). *As I Was Going to St Ives: A Life of Derek Jackson*. Norwich [U.K.]: Michael Russell. ISBN 978-0-85955-311-7.

1. [‘Derek, please, not so fast’](https://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n03/ferdinand-mount/derek-please-not-so-fast), Ferdinand Mount, London Review of Books, 7 February 2008

1. ["OBITUARY : Barbara Skelton"](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-barbara-skelton-1316869.html). *[Independent.co.uk](/source/Independent.co.uk)*. 23 October 2011.

**Secondary sources**

- Price, Alfred (1967). [*Instruments of darkness*](https://books.google.com/books?id=kHgbAAAACAAJ). London: William Kimber. ISBN 9781853676161.
- Diana Mitford (1985). *Loved Ones*. [Sidgwick & Jackson](/source/Sidgwick_%26_Jackson). ISBN 9780283991554.
- Alexander, Diana (2012). *The Other Mitford: Pamela's Story*. Stroud.

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