On leaving school in 1800, Joseph Jackson was apprenticed to his father's wine business in Lothbury, which was becoming a thriving and prosperous concern, and in 1804, at the age of 18 he was made a partner.

Isabella junior taught reading and writing to the girls of the school for five years, leaving in 1818 to marry Joseph Jackson Lister.

Their children included Mary, 1820–94, who married Rickman Godlee, a barrister of the Inner Temple in 1845, John, 1822–46, Isabella Sophia, 1823–70, Joseph, 1827–1912, William Henry, 1828–59 and Arthur Hugh, 1830–1908.

Joseph studied medicine, becoming a surgeon and achieving fame and a baronetcy – and later a peerage, becoming Lord Lister – for his work in antisepsis.

His interest continued, writing a paper in 1843, entitled 'On the Limit to Defining Power in Vision with the Unassisted Eye, the Telescope and the Microscope’.

It was never published, but years later it was presented by his son Lord Lister to the Royal Microscopical Society, and seen to have anticipated many of the later discoveries made by Ernst Abbe and others.

Joseph's remaining five years were lonely, although three of the children lived nearby with many grandchildren, and he observed that "since his own great loss his friends and contemporaries seemed falling like autumn leaves".

His chief pleasure during his final years was to receive weekly letters from Joseph in Edinburgh, and to watch his son's advance and the progress of his discoveries.

He died aged 83 in October 1869 at home at Upton House, and was buried along with Isabella his wife, in the Friends' Burial Ground, Stoke Newington, Middlesex.