Willis Jackson, Baron Jackson of Burnley FRS (29 October 1904 – 17 February 1970)[1] was a British technologist and electrical engineer.
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Born in Burnley, he was the only son of Herbert Jackson and his wife Annie Hiley.[1] Jackson was educated at Rosegrove Primary School and the Burnley Grammar School until 1922 and read electrical engineering at the Victoria University of Manchester until 1925.[2] He obtained a Bachelor of Science first class, having previously won three different scholarships.[3] Jackson studied then under Robert Beattie, graduating with a Master of Science in 1926.[3]
Jackson held two honorary degree as Doctor of Science awarded by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and by the University of Bristol.[4] He was made an honorary Doctor of Engineering by the University of Sheffield and received a Doctor of Laws by the University of Aberdeen[4] as well as by the University of Leeds in 1967.[5] He was granted an honorary fellowship by the City and Guilds of London Institute[4] and by the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1968.[6] In the same year the University of Dundee conferred upon him another honorary degree[7] and he was elected a fellow by the Royal College of Art.[8]
After his education, Jackson became lecturer in electical engineering first at the Bradford Technical College (now the University of Bradford) until 1929.[2] In the following year he worked as apprentice for the electrical company Metropolitan-Vickers.[3] Jackson lectured at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology from 1930 and subsequently at The Queen's College, Oxford from 1933.[9]
He graduated as Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and as Doctor of Science at Manchester in 1936.[9] 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.[10] In 1946, he moved to the Imperial College London as professor for electrical engineering.[11] Jackson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1953[12] and joined again Vickers as director of its research and education department, a post he held until 1961.[2]
Jackson was knighted in 1958.[13] 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.[4] For four years Jackson chaired the governing body of the Royal Technical Institute, Salford (now the University of Salford) until 1962.[4] He returned to the Imperial College in 1961, heading its Department of Electrical Engineering until his death in 1970;[14] for the last three years he was the College's pro-rector.[15] In 1962 he entered the South Eastern Electricity Board.[4]
In 1944 Jackson was appointed to the Radio Research Board of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in which he sat for four years; he served another term from 1950.[4] He was a member of the Central Advisory Council to the Ministry of Education from 1945 and of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Ministry of Supply from 1947.[4] A year later Jackson was admitted to BBC's Engineering Advisory Committee and in 1951 to the Committee of Selection to the Commonwealth Fund Fellowships.[4]
He became a member of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service in 1953.[4] Two years later in 1955 Jackson joined the University Grants Committee, whose membership he held for a decade.[16] In the same year he sat in the Ministry of Education's Council of Technological Awards.[4] Jackson was nominated a chairman of the Ministry's Committee on Supply and Training of Technical Teachers in 1956.[4] He chaired the FBI Research Committee of 1958 and became a member of the Committee on Management of Research, run by the Lord President of the Council.[4]
In September 1961, he was invited to the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy and to the Scientific Manpower Committee.[4] Jackson was chosen president of the British Association for Commercial and Industrial Education in 1962[16] and entered the Advisory Council for Technical Education for Overseas Countries.[4] He received a life peerage with the title Baron Jackson of Burnley, of Burnley, in the County Palatine of Lancaster on 19 January 1967.[17]
In 1938 he married Mary, daughter of Robert Oliphant Boswall, a lecturer in mechanical engineering; they had two daughters.[10]
One of Jackson's closest friends was the physicist John F. Allen.[1] In his last years he supported the development of the Indian Institutes of Technology.[18]