author
1859–1915
Best known for a vivid Boer War regimental history, this British Army officer wrote from close knowledge of the Devonshire Regiment and the world it served in. His work has the detail of military record-keeping, but it also carries a strong sense of duty, endurance, and comradeship.
Mainwaring George Jacson (1859–1915) is remembered today for The Record of a Regiment of the Line, a history of the 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment during the Boer War. Project Gutenberg lists that book as his known work, and its original publication presents him as Colonel M. Jacson.
The book follows the regiment through the South African War of 1899–1902, especially the campaign around Ladysmith. It is valued less as a distant overview than as a careful soldier’s account, shaped by close attention to movement, leadership, and the everyday strain of campaigning.
Sources on his military life identify him as an officer of the Devonshire Regiment who later held the rank of brigadier-general, and they record his death in 1915 during the First World War. Taken together, those details help explain the tone of his writing: practical, disciplined, and deeply concerned with preserving the record of a regiment and its men.