Derek Ainslie Jackson, OBE, DFC, AFC, FRS (23 June 1906 – 20 February 1982) was a British physicist and jockey.

Biography

Derek Jackson was born in 1906, the son of Welsh businessman Sir Charles Jackson. Derek Jackson showed early promise in the field of spectroscopy under the guidance of Professor Frederick Lindemann, making the first quantitative determination of a nuclear magnetic spin using

atomic spectroscopy Atomic spectroscopy is the study of the electromagnetic radiation absorbed and emitted by atoms. Since unique elements have characteristic (signature) spectra, atomic spectroscopy, specifically the electromagnetic spectrum or mass spectrum, is appl ...

to measure the hyperfine structure of caesium. His scientific research at Oxford did not, however, interfere with his other great passion – steeplechase riding – which led him from the

foxhunting Fox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase and, if caught, the killing of a fox, traditionally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds. A group of unarmed followers, led by a "master of foxhounds" (or "master of ho ...

field to his first ride in the

Grand National The Grand National is a National Hunt horse race held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England. First run in 1839, it is a handicap st ...

of 1935. A keen huntsman, he took up the sport again after the war, riding in two more Nationals after the war, the last time when he was 40 years old. 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 based at

RAF Middle Wallop Middle Wallop is a village in the civil parish of Nether Wallop in Hampshire, England, on the A343 road. At the 2011 Census the population was included in the civil parish of Over Wallop. The village has a public house, The George Inn, and a pe ...

. He was decorated with the DFC, AFC and OBE. This war record stands in contrast to his stated desire at the war's inception to keep Britain out of fighting Germany, and his reported desire "that all Jews in England should be killed". For the rest of his life, Jackson, appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1947, lived as a

tax exile A tax exile is a person who leaves a country to avoid the payment of income tax or other taxes. The term refers to an individual who already owes money to the tax authorities or wishes to avoid being liable in the future for taxation at what they ...

in Ireland, France and Switzerland. He continued his spectroscopic work in France at the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...

, and was made a

chevalier de la Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon B ...

. A "rampant bisexual", Jackson was married six times, and also lived for three years with Angela Culme-Seymour, the half-sister of Janetta Wooley, one of his wives. The others included a daughter of

Augustus John Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarge ...

Pamela Mitford Pamela Freeman-Mitford (25 November 1907 – 12 April 1994) was one of the Mitford sisters. Biography Pamela Freeman-Mitford was born on 25 November 1907, the second daughter of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and Sydney Bowles (1880 ...

(one of the Mitford sisters), a princess and several femme fatales including 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").

Books and publications

References

;Secondary sources * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Derek Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Bisexual men Knights of the Legion of Honour Fellows of the Royal Society English bisexual people Officers of the Order of the British Empire Recipients of the Air Force Cross (United Kingdom) Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom) Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Spectroscopists 1906 births 1982 deaths 20th-century English LGBT people Fellows of the American Physical Society