16 
Transactions of the Society. 
APPENDIX. 
Notices of such of the Presidents since 1852 as are now deceased. 
George Jackson, M.R.C.S. 
President 1852-3. 
George Jackson was an original Fellow of the Society, and a member 
of its first Council, and he was elected as its seventh President in 1852. 
He was born in 1792, and was the eldest son of a farmer at Higher 
Yellington, in South Devon. He was educated at the Ashburton 
Grammar School, and, being destined for the medical profession, was 
articled to Mr. Gervis, a surgeon at Ashburton; he, however, graduated 
in London. 
Jackson was a born mechanician. His first effort was the manufacture 
of an efficient mouse-trap, his grandmother having rashly offered him a 
guinea if he would do so, she believing it to be impossible. He was an 
excellent manipulator with the table blowpipe, and supplied himself and 
friends with thermometers, hydrometers, and barometers. He also con- 
structed a transit instrument. In 1826 he was rewarded by the Society 
of Arts for an instantaneous light-apparatus, being a modification of the 
hydrogen and spongy platinum lamp. 
He was an early lover of the Microscope, and many years before the 
existence of the Microscopical Society constructed an efficient instrument 
for using the doublet lenses introduced by Dr. Wollaston ; later he pro- 
duced a large-sized instrument equal to the best Microscopes of that 
period. He was an adept with the turniDg- lathe and planiDg-machine. 
These instruments he had constructed on his own plans, much of them 
by his own hands. He also constructed an elegant little ruli,ng-machine 
for the division of micrometers ; a subject with which his name is inti- 
mately connected. About the same time he made a very serviceable 
cutting-machine for producing thin sections of wood, &c. 
In conjunction with Drs. Carpenter and Lankester and John T. 
Quekett he was appointed by the Council of the Society of Arts to 
award their premium for the best and cheapest Microscope. In 1857 he 
exhibited and described a new form of travelling Microscope. He was 
the inventor of what is known as the Jackson limb for the Microscope, 
which is still largely used. 
When the collodion process came into vogue Mr. Jackson turned his 
attention to photography, and constructed a camera for himself. The 
Society’s museum still contains photomicrographs of some sixteen of its 
members, taken by him. Mr. Jackson died in December 1860. 
Edwin Lankester, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. 
President 1858-9. 
Edwin Lankester, whose genial manners made him generally popular, 
was born on April 23rd, 1814, at Melton, in Suffolk, and was educated 
at Woodbridge, where he was articled to Samuel Gissing, surgeon. He 
entered the medical profession. He became Lecturer on Materia Medica 
