William Jackson (British Army officer)

For other people named William Jackson, see William Jackson (disambiguation).

William Godfrey Fothergill Jackson
Sir William Jackson (left) with Sir Joshua Hassan, Chief Minister of Gibraltar (right) awaiting the arrival to Gibraltar of the Charles, Prince of Walesin 1977.
Born	28 August 1917(1917-08-28)
Died	12 March 1999(1999-03-12) (aged 81)
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Rank	General
Commands held	Governor of Gibraltar
Awards	Knight of the Grand Cross Knight Commander Military Cross

General Sir William Godfrey Fothergill Jackson, GBE, KCB, MC (28 August 1917 – 12 March 1999) was a British Army officer, military historian, author and Governor of Gibraltar.

Military career

Educated at Shrewsbury School, the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and King's College, Cambridge, William Jackson was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1937. He served with the British Army in Norway, North Africa, Sicily, Italy and the Far East during World War II.

After the War he became a General Staff Officer at Headquarters Allied Land Forces, South East Asia in 1945 before moving on to be an Instructor at the Staff College, Camberley in 1948 and an Instructor at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in 1951. He was appointed Assistant Adjutant & Quartermaster General (Plans) at the War Office during the Suez crisis in 1956. He became Commander, Gurkha Engineers in 1958 and went back to the Staff College, Camberley in 1961.

He was Deputy Director of Staff Duties at the War Office from 1962 and joined the Imperial Defence College in 1965. He went on to be Director of the Chief of Defence Staff's Unison Planning Staff in 1966 and Assistant Chief of the General Staff (Operational Requirements) at the Ministry of Defence in 1968.

He was appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief for Northern Command in 1970 and Quartermaster-General to the Forces in 1973. He was a Military Historian at the Cabinet Office from 1977 to 1978 when he became Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar; he retired in 1982. He was knighted in 1971.

Works

• Attack in the West (1953);
• Seven Roads to Moscow (1957);
• The Battle for Italy (1967);
• Overlord: Normandy 1944 (1978);
• Withdrawal From Empire: A Military View (1986)
• Jackson, William G.F. (1987) (Hardback). The Rock of the Gibraltarians (2nd edition ed.). United States: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 0-8386-3237-8. ;
• Britain's Triumph and Decline in the Middle East (1996)

Legacy

• His name is given to a large residential estate in Gibraltar (Sir William Jackson Grove).

References

Military offices
Preceded by New Post	Assistant Chief of the General Staff 1968–1970	Succeeded by Ian Gill
Preceded by Sir Cecil Blacker	GOC-in-C Northern Command 1970–1972	Succeeded by Post disbanded
Preceded by Sir Anthony Read	Quartermaster-General to the Forces 1973–1977	Succeeded by Sir Patrick Howard-Dobson
Government offices
Preceded by Sir John Grandy	Governor of Gibraltar 1978-1982	Succeeded by Sir David Williams