John Jackson of Fulham

London merchant, partner with (and almost certainly son-in-law of) John Serocold (q.v.) in the merchant and sugar factoring house Serocold and Jackson. John Serocold was bankrupt in 1786, but John Jackson appears to have navigated the collapse: certainly in his will proved in 1810 he disclaimed responsibility for the debts of Serocold and Jackson. A creditor, Ann Baxter (q.v.), in her will made in 1803 described him as late a West India merchant but now residing at Hammersmith, brickmaker.

1. Will of John Jackson of [North End] Fulham in Middlesex proved 23/02/1810. The will was self-penned, without 'the assistance of professional men of law' and shows it as he recounted the complex state of his affairs: 'I forgive mine enemies, persecutors and slanderers.' 'I leave to my executors the fullest power possible to obtain some justice from Mr Beckford of Fonthill, from John Jarrett Esquire of Portland Place and from every other person now or who may hereafter be indebted to me.' He willed that all his just debts contracted since May 1798 be fully paid, 'and although debts which were incurred by Serocold and Jackson cannot be legally claimed against me', he instructed his executors to settle in full from money to be received from Beckford and Jarrett the amounts that had been lent by creditors to Serocold and Jackson [of which he said he attached a list, which gives the names of a dozen or so individuals without amounts]: he made a distinction between these obligations and those in which Serocold and Jackson had merely provided sureties for third parties without receiving payment from them, for which he said he did not feel responsible. He said that his wife would be amply provided for by her thirds of all the West India estates, and left her £1000. To 'my dear nephew Samuel', the only son of his dearly beloved brother [also Samuel] he left £10,000 'with all my reversionary rights in Amity Hall and Sod Hall'; to his nephew John Serocold Jackson he left £5000 and the reversionary rights to the house in which John Jackson lived, with 5 acres of grounds walled in, as well as all his interest in Hampton estate, which had belonged to John Serocold Jackson's father Robert Jackson, and he instructed his nephew to distribute among his siblings the judgment for £27,000 held by John Jackson on his brother Robert's estate. He left £5000 each to William Ludlam of North End (an executor) and to Maria, daughter of William Noble banker of Pall Mall, £3000 to James Ricketts and his wife and £4000 to his very esteemed friend Mrs Olivia Parkins. He expressed confidence that the 'undermentioned estates' would eventually be recovered: Cath. Hall; Hampton; Amity Hall; the Rhine; the Spring; Blackheath and Sod Hall in Jamaica and Courland estate in Tobago. In a codicil he redirected his house at North End to his nephew Samuel Jackson.

Anne M. Powers, 'Serocold of London', http://aparcelofribbons.co.uk/wp-content/paf_files/serocold/pafg05.htm#25 [accessed 30/03/2015]; London Gazette 12760 13/06/1786 p. 270.

Michael Craton and James Walvin, A Jamaican Plantation. The History of Worthy Park 1670-1970 (W.H. Allen, London and New York, 1970) pp. 157-159, 162-163.

1. PROB 11/1508/419.