author
Mainwaring George Jacson
1859–1915
A career British Army officer, he turned firsthand service into a vivid regimental history of the Boer War. His best-known book brings the 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment’s campaign to life with the eye of someone who knew military life from the inside.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1859 and dying in 1915, Mainwaring George Jacson was a British Army officer who served with the Devonshire Regiment and later held the rank of brigadier general. Records from the Imperial War Museums’ Lives of the First World War identify him as having entered the regiment in 1880, while memorial records also connect him with Portsmouth Garrison and confirm his death during the First World War era.
Jacson is remembered by readers chiefly for The Record of a Regiment of the Line: Being a Regimental History of the 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment During the Boer War, 1899–1902, published in 1908. The book is valued as a detailed military narrative, shaped by his own professional experience and close knowledge of the regiment he wrote about.
Little easily confirmed biographical detail seems to survive online beyond his military career and authorship. Even so, his work stands as a useful period account for listeners interested in the Boer War, regimental history, and the perspective of an officer writing near the events themselves.