Derek Jackson
{{Short description|British physicist (1906–1982)}}
{{EngvarB|date=June 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2017}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Derek Jackson
| honorific_suffix = OBE, DFC, AFC, FRS
| image = Derek Ainslie Jackson.png
| caption =
| birth_name = Derek Ainslie Jackson
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1906|6|23}}
| birth_place =
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1982|2|20|1906|6|23}}
| death_place = Lausanne, Switzerland
| nationality = British
| field = Spectroscopy
| work_institution = Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford
| alma_mater = Trinity College, Cambridge
| doctoral_advisor = Frederick A. Lindemann
| doctoral_students =
| known_for = Atomic physics
| prizes = Fellow of the Royal Society{{Cite journal | last1 = Kuhn | first1 = H. G. | last2 = Hartley | first2 = Christopher | author-link2 = Christopher Hartley (RAF officer)| doi= 10.1098/rsbm.1983.0012 | title= Derek Ainslie Jackson. 23 June 1906 – 20 February 1982 | journal = Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society | volume = 29 | pages = 268–296 | year = 1983 | jstor = 769805 | title-link = Derek Jackson (physicist) | doi-access = free }}
| father = Charles James Jackson
| mother = {{nowrap|Ada Elizabeth Williams}}
| education = Rugby School
| spouse(s) = {{marriage|Elizabeth John|1931|1935|reason=div}}
{{marriage|Pamela Mitford|1936|1951|reason=div}}
{{marriage|Janetta Woolley|1951|1956|reason=div}}
{{marriage|Consuelo Eyre|1957|1959|reason=div}}
{{marriage|Barbara Skelton|1966|1967|reason=div}}
{{marriage|Marie Christine Reille|1968}}
| footnotes =
| module = {{infobox military person
| embed = yes
| allegiance = {{flag|United Kingdom}}
| branch = {{air force|United Kingdom}}
| unit = No. 604 (County of Middlesex) Squadron
| rank =
| battles = World War II
}}
}}
Derek Ainslie Jackson, OBE, DFC, AFC, FRS (23 June 1906 – 20 February 1982) was a British physicist.{{Cite journal | last1 = Bleaney | first1 = B. | author-link = Brebis Bleaney| title = Derek Ainslie Jackson (1906–1982): Some recollections of a great European spectroscopist | doi = 10.1098/rsnr.2001.0144 | journal = Notes and Records of the Royal Society | volume=55 | issue = 2 | pages = 285–287 | year = 2001 | jstor = 532101 | title-link = Derek Jackson (physicist) | s2cid = 73248246 }}{{Cite ODNB | author = Jack Morrell | title= Jackson, Derek Ainslie (1906–1982)| doi = 10.1093/ref:odnb/31279 | year = 2004 | title-link= Derek Jackson (physicist)}}
Biography
Derek Jackson was born in 1906, the son of Welsh businessman Sir Charles Jackson. He was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a first in part I of the natural sciences tripos and graduated with honours in 1927. 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 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 field to his first ride in the Grand National 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.{{fact|date=May 2023}}
In World War II, Jackson distinguished himself in the RAF, making an important scientific contribution{{what|date=May 2023}} 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. 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. For the rest of his life, Jackson, appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1947, lived as a tax exile in Ireland, France and Switzerland. He continued his spectroscopic work in France at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, and was made a chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.
A "rampant bisexual",{{cite book|author=Simon Courtauld|title=As I Was Going to St Ives: A Life of Derek Jackson |publisher=Michael Russell |location=Norwich [U.K.]|year=2007|isbn=978-0-85955-311-7}}[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n03/ferdinand-mount/derek-please-not-so-fast ‘Derek, please, not so fast’], Ferdinand Mount, London Review of Books, 7 February 2008 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, Pamela Mitford (one of the Mitford sisters), a princess, and several femmes fatale 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").{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-barbara-skelton-1316869.html|title = OBITUARY : Barbara Skelton|website = Independent.co.uk|date = 23 October 2011}}
Books and publications
- {{cite journal|title=Hyperfine structure in the arc spectrum of caesium and nuclear rotation|last=Jackson|first=D. A.|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A|year=1928|page=432 |doi=10.1098/rspa.1928.0207|volume=121|issue=787|bibcode=1928RSPSA.121..432J|doi-access=free}}
References
{{reflist|30em}}
;Secondary sources
- {{cite book|title=Instruments of darkness|first=Alfred|last=Price|publisher=William Kimber|place=London|year=1967|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kHgbAAAACAAJ|isbn=9781853676161}}
- {{cite book|title=Loved Ones|author=Diana Mitford|publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson|year=1985|isbn=9780283991554|title-link=Loved Ones (book)|author-link=Diana Mitford}}
- {{cite book| first=Diana|last=Alexander|title=The Other Mitford: Pamela's Story|place=Stroud|date=2012}}
{{Authority control}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Derek}}
Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Category:Knights of the Legion of Honour
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society
Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Category:Recipients of the Air Force Cross (United Kingdom)
Category:Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom)
Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War II