Grace's Guide To British Industrial History

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Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 167,713 pages of information and 247,105 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 147,919 pages of information and 233,587 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Willis Jackson

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1970.

Willis Jackson (1904-1970) a British technologist and electrical engineer.

Born in Burnley, he was the only son of Herbert Jackson and his wife Annie Hiley.

Educated at Rosegrove Primary School and the Burnley Grammar School until 1922 and read electrical engineering at the University of Manchester until 1925. He obtained a Bachelor of Science first class, having previously won three different scholarships. Jackson studied then under Robert Beattie, graduating with a Master of Science in 1926.

Jackson was awarded a number of honorary degrees. Doctor of Science degrees were awarded by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, by the University of Bristol and by City University London. He was made an honorary Doctor of Engineering by the University of Sheffield and received a Doctor of Laws from the University of Aberdeen as well as from the University of Leeds in 1967. He was granted an honorary fellowship by the City and Guilds of London Institute and by the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1968. In the same year the University of Dundee conferred upon him another honorary degree and he was elected a fellow by the Royal College of Art. In 1961 he presented the Bernard Price Memorial

After his education, Jackson became lecturer in electrical engineering first at the Bradford Technical College (now the University of Bradford) until 1929.

In the following year he worked as apprentice for the electrical company Metropolitan-Vickers.

Jackson lectured at the UMIST from 1930 and subsequently at The Queen's College, Oxford from 1933.

He graduated as Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and as Doctor of Science at Manchester in 1936.

Afterwards he became again employed at Vickers working as research engineer for the next two years and then obtained a professorship in electrotechnics at his former university.

In 1946, he moved to Imperial College London as professor for electrical engineering.

Jackson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1953 and joined again Vickers as director of its research and education department, a post he held until 1961.[

Jackson was knighted in 1958.

He served as president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in the following two years until 1960 and after another year became president of the Association of Supervising Electrical Engineers.

For four years Jackson chaired the governing body of the Royal Technical Institute, Salford (now the University of Salford) until 1962.[6] He returned to the Imperial College in 1961, heading its Department of Electrical Engineering until his death in 1970; for the last three years he was the College's pro-rector.

In 1962 he entered the South Eastern Electricity Board.

He gave the 1967 presidential address (Science, Technology and Society) to the British Association meeting in Leeds. He published a number of books and journal articles on his research.

In 1938 he married Mary, daughter of Robert Oliphant Boswall, a lecturer in mechanical engineering; they had two daughters


1970 Obituary [1]



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