Magnus Jackson

Magnus Jackson (25 September 1831 – 27 April 1891) was a Scottish landscape photographer from Perth. He was noted for his use of the collodion process in developing his photographic film. He left around 2,500 glass photographic negatives taken in Perth and the surrounding area between the late 1850s and 1890. These are now on permanent display at Perth Museum and Art Gallery.

In 2017, Perth Museum and Art Gallery exhibited Jackson's work over four months. The exhibition featured a projected silhouette of Jackson describing, in his own words, the challenge of using wet-plate collodion photography.

Early life Jackson grew up at the rear of today's 70 George Street, the last building on the left before Bridge Lane here. Only the Thomas Hay Marshall monument section of Perth Museum existed at the time, having been constructed seven years before his birth Jackson was born in 1831, to Thomas Jackson and Helen Miller, one of their six children (three sons and three daughters). a few yards to the north, adjacent to Greyfriars Burial Ground. The same year, he was awarded a medal at the International Forestry Exhibition in Edinburgh. and the premises were taken over by Burrows Brothers photographers. The following year, he was elected to Perth's town council.

In 1879, he was part of a committee charged with building the Perthshire Society of Natural Science Museum at today's 62–72 Tay Street. He was elected to the council of PSNS the following year, elevating to vice-president between 1882 and 1884. In the middle of this tenure, he exhibited his work A piece of larch from a tree which had been struck by lightning.

He was appointed Police Commissioner for Perth in 1885, under the General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act 1862 (25 & 26 Vict. c. 101). His role was to oversee the police department, street lighting and fire services.

By the last decade of his life, Jackson was on the council of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

A supporter of the Literary and Antiquarian Society of Perth, he bequeathed a brass candlestick to their collection. It was reportedly given to one of his ancestors, Magnus the Miller, by William Wallace. It is in the collections of Perth Museum and Art Gallery.

In 1887, he was a part of a committee that dealt with a boat carrying victims of cholera, and found a safe mooring place on the Tay that allowed the facilitation of treatment for and isolation of the patients.

Two years before his death, in May 1889 he officially opened Perth's public swimming baths on Dunkeld Road. His wife, Jessie, died two months later, in July.

Death

Jackson died in 1891, aged 59. His death was not unexpected, his having been ill for several years. His causes of death were given as "senile decay, chronic hepatitis, acute dyspepsia and inanition".

In his newspaper obituary, the Perthshire Constitutional noted that he was "known across Scotland as a first-rate landscape photographer".

Jackson and his wife are interred in Perth's Wellshill Cemetery.

Publication Photography Outside the Studio (1881) – published in two parts in both The Photographic News and the British Journal of Photography