Mason Jackson

Life

Jackson was born at Ovingham, Northumberland in 1819, and was trained as a wood engraver by his brother, John Jackson, the author of a history of this art.

In the middle of the 19th century he made a considerable reputation by his engravings for the Art Union of London, and for Knight’s Shakespeare and other standard books. On the death of Herbert Ingram in 1860 he was appointed art editor of the Illustrated London News, a post which he held for thirty years. He wrote a history of the rise and progress of illustrated journalism.

Jackson died in December 1903 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.

Amongst his apprentices was Edmund Morison Wimperis, who became a notable watercolour landscape painter.