The son of William Turner Jackson and his wife Lucille, he was born 30 March 1790, and baptised at St. Anne's Church, Westminster on 24 May that year.
[1] Jackson resigned his rank in India 28 August 1813 to seek employment in the Duke of Wellington's army, but arrived too late.
He did duty with the quartermaster-general's staff of the 12th Russian infantry division under Count Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov, forming part of the allied army of occupation in France, until 6 November 1818, when he went to Russia with them in the rank of staff-captain.
[1] On Jackson's retirement Georg von Cancrin, Imperial finance minister, appointed him commissioner and correspondent in London for the Russian department of manufactures.
About the same time he was suddenly superseded in his Russian post and was in financial difficulty; through Sir Roderick Murchison he obtained a clerkship under the council of education, which he held for life, and Nicholas I of Russia also gave him a small pension.