358 In Memoriam John Edward Jackson, F.8.A. 



year after year his paper came to be looked on as one of the special 

 treats of the Meeting. Endowed himself with the power of seeing 

 the humorous side of things he used that power to give life to what 

 in other hands — as learned, perhaps, as his own — would have 

 remained to the end nothing but the dry bones of genealogical or 

 topographical research. 



Of his published works the most important was, of course, his 

 annotations to the Topographical Collections of Aubrey. In this 

 thick volume the results of years of labour and research are contained, 

 the annotations being not only of far greater bulk but also of 

 greater value than the text on which they are based. But his other 

 monographs and papers, which may be found in every volume of the 

 Magazine, as well as those which- — like the History of Grittleton 

 and of the two Churches of St. Mary's and St. George's, Doncaster 

 — were published separately, were one and all of them really 

 valuable, the greater number of them complete in themselves and 

 containing all the information which could be brought to bear upon 

 the subject in hand. Much of his most valuable matter he gleaned 

 from the MSS., deeds, and documents hidden in the libraries and 

 muniment rooms of the great houses of the county, notably from 

 those of Longleat, among which he was often at work ; some of 

 the most interesting of his communications to the Magazine being 

 founded on materials disinterred from that storehouse of valuable 

 documents. 



It has often been regretted that he did not undertake that task 

 which still awaits fulfilment, the writing of the History of Wiltshire 

 — and he was, perhaps, the only man of the present time who 

 could have done it. But the time for it was scarcely ripe, the 

 materials were not ready to his hand, and he spent his life in 

 gathering and sifting the facts with which the future, historian of 

 the county must build his history. He had a horror of doing 

 anything incompletely or inaccurately. When he excused himself 

 from reading a paper at the Devizes Meeting last year, it was on the 

 plea that he had so many things to finish up and put in order that 

 he could not now undertake any fresh work; and only a few months 

 before his death he said, looking at the volumes of Ilungerfordiana, 



