Margery Jackson

Margery Jackson (January 1722 – 10 February 1812) was a British landlady in Carlisle, Cumberland. She was the daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant who was the mayor of Carlisle. In her latter years, following a fifteen-year legal dispute in the Court of Chancery over the execution of her father's and brother's wills, she returned from London to Carlisle in possession of the family fortune. She was then 69 years old and a spinster.

Thereafter, while living like a pauper in the family townhouse on Carlisle's market square, Jackson accrued a box of gold in rent from her properties. She became a local character, well-known for her miserly behaviour, her drinking, swearing and forthright speech, and her hidden riches, leading her to be nicknamed the Carlisle Miser. She was kind to her horses and dogs. In spite of her reclusive lifestyle, she had a friend in her financial advisor, Joseph Bowman of Botcherby, who took her into his home during her last illness.

Since her death in 1812, Jackson has been remembered in books, verse, a musical, and Tullie House Museum displays, for her eccentric behaviour, and for the size of her fortune, most of which she left to Bowman. Jackson was caricatured as a miser in the traditional manner until the publication in 1991 of a book by Helen R. Hallaway, which reassesses her position as an independent woman in the society of her era.

Life before Jackson's court cases Financial and family background In Jackson's time, family background mattered, and she had a background of social distinction. Her maternal grandfather was alderman William Nicholson JP, mayor of Carlisle and relative of William Nicolson, bishop of Carlisle. Her maternal great grandmother, after whom she was named, was Margery Aglionby, wife of John Aglionby, a hero of the siege of Carlisle. Her maternal grandmother was an Aglionby of Anglo-Norman descent, with aristocratic relatives and family arms displayed in St Cuthbert's Church, Carlisle. Her Aglionby ancestors included members of Parliament, mayors of Carlisle and a chaplain to Queen Elizabeth I, John Aglionby. In Jackson's lifetime, the Aglionbys' seat was the Nunnery of Ainstable.

Jackson's early life, 1722–1776 Margery Jackson, who was born in Carlisle in January 1722 and baptised in the same town on 22 February 1722, grew up in the care of her cousin Thomas James (1706–1739) and his sister Elizabeth James (born 1708). and that she then lodged at Stanwix for a while before returning to London to file her suit. William was sued in Chancery by Margery for the moneys. and repeated in Blair (1848) Following the successful conclusion of her Chancery case, Jackson returned to Carlisle in 1791, making an entrance in her own newly built "splendid carriage" which incorporated plate glass from her brother's chaise, and carrying a new silver teapot by silversmith William Abdy II, She then took possession of William's townhouse in the Square. Blair (1848) suggests that Jackson's miserly habit began at this point, because she had to make up for the money spent on the suit and on paying off the fifteen Hodgson cousins. Jackson was thereafter a "litigious woman".

Initially, Jackson kept servants, "lived a gentlewoman's life" and went out in her carriage. However she was disliked by her neighbours, who did not invite or visit her. She put her horses out to grass, she slung her carriage, wheel-less, from the carriage-house roof, and dismissed her servants.

Jackson would sew and read her Bible at home on Sundays, but did not attend Carlisle's St Cuthbert's Church, where she rented a box pew. However, having been informed that some lads had been using her pew, she arrived at the service, asserted her rights by turning them out of her pew, and promptly went home. Hallaway (1991) says that it took "four stout men" to lift the "iron trunk weighing a quarter of a ton (255 kilos)" into the cart. and hundreds of people, "attracted by curiosity", attended the funeral.

Court mantua

Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery holds a blue silk court mantua once owned by Jackson. The dress was made between 1750 and the early 1760s. Jackson would have been about 27 years old in 1750, but she was single, and such a dress was made for the use of a married woman at the royal court. The early provenance of the dress is unknown. The mantua has been dated according to the shape of its hooped petticoat, which is fan-shaped in this case, but would have been more rectangular in the 1740s or late 1760s. The dress is in "pristine condition", and it retains its original stomacher and "hugely expensive" silver lace. it was displayed in the new costume galleries at Tullie House.

Jackson in popular culture In the 1960s there was a confused tale of ghostly manifestations of Jackson in a "farm cottage" at Botcherby and in "houses" built on the former site of her home in Carlisle. However she did not occupy a farm cottage, and the buildings which replaced her Carlisle home in 1984 were shops, associated with The Lanes shopping precinct development. The same tale was elaborated in 2012 and 2014. A fictional version of Jackson's story forms the plot of the musical Miser! The Musical (2011), directed by David Day.

Traditional caricature Jackson was described as exemplifying miserliness:

Reassessment In 1991, with the publication of Hallaway's Margery Jackson, Jackson was reassessed in the context of women's place in history, although Hallaway agrees with Blair as to most historical facts, including Jackson's "comical disfigurement" of a beard.

Margery Jackson was a woman of no importance, but she was outstanding in an age when women were considered of little consequence. She had an admirable grasp of the intricacies of litigation and unshakeable tenacity. But "give a dog a bad name and hang him", one cannot but feel a sympathy for Margery. In her time, honesty and integrity had quite different meanings, yet she was wholly honest and truthful, and absolutely just. Her reputation, so far, has depended on the biased, sanctimonious, and inaccurate biography produced by the daughter of the spiteful owner of the local newspaper. Mrs Blair (née Jollie) never knew Margery Jackson, but condemned her as a "creature forever removed from the land of hope". As for her fellow citizens of Carlisle Margery summed them up exactly: "... what", she wondered, "the people there will do when I die for a subject of chat?"