578 Henry Jackson

Constituency : Coventry 1867-8, 1874-81

Henry  recovered  one  of  the  Coventry  seats, both  lost  to  the  Liberals  in  by-elections  during Palmerston's  ministry,  following  the  death  of  the  Tory  MP.

Henry  was  the  son  of  Sir  William  Jackson  the  industrialist  MP  for  Newcastle-under-Lyme. He  was educated  at  Harrow  and  Oxford. He  became  a  barrister. He  stood  unsuccessfully  for  Birkenhead  in 1865.

Henry's  election  was  overturned  on  petition for  bribery  by  his  agents and  although  another  Liberal  won  the  by-election, Henry was  defeated  at  the  general  election  of  1868. Against  the  trend  he  won  the  seat  back  in  1874. He  became  a  frequent  speaker  in  the  Commons  usually  on  legal  matters.

In  1876  Henry  inherited  his  father's  baronetcy. In  1879  he  was  appointed  to  a  Royal  Commission on  the  state  of  the  English  and  Welsh  Cathedrals.

In  1881  he  resigned  his  seat  in  order  to  become  a  High  Court  judge  but  died  four  days  after  his  appointment  aged  49. The  Tories  won  the  by-election.