Hero war veteran’s short-lived career as licensee of ‘Jackson’s’ Harp Hotel

The writing on the right-hand wall on the painting above states “Woods” and it was later in that same year of 1918 that the licensee of the Harp Hotel in Corrimal Street Wollongong became John William Alexander Jackson VC, DCM.

Throughout his life Private Jackson (1897-1959) seems to have most often used his second name, “William”.

The “Miss Jackson” mentioned in the advertisement below is, presumably, a sister of William Jackson VC who at the time had five surviving siblings.

The Victoria Cross winner’s tenancy as licensee of the Harp Hotel was exceedingly short and he had decamped for pastures new as early as March 1919.

The obvious question, however, is how would it be possible for the William Jackson born on 13 September 1897 at Gunbar near Hay, NSW, as the son of a labourer (and after enlisting in World War I with the lowly rank of a private in 1915) to have enough money to pay for a hotel licence in Wollongong just three years later?

My guess is that Jackson was simply acting for an agent who, possibly, was the former licensee, Thomas James Wood, who was having some issues and had no lease of the premises, but a lease was being prepared in regard to which a hitch had occurred.

Wood had first gained the licence in 1913 after moving from Newtown.

The second problem was that Thomas Wood objected to paying “the licence fee at £40 per annum”.

The third hitch was that “no objection would be taken to the renewal provided a guarantee was given that the premises would be painted and repaired”.

Thomas Woods’ solicitor Mr Cox said: “A lease was being prepared for nine years for £900 and a rental of £4 10s per week. Repairs to the extent of about £250 would also be carried out, the landlord to pay for the outside of the building and the tenant for the inside.”

It seems unlikely to me that the Victoria Cross winner would have been in a sufficiently healthy financial position to pay such sums unless private benefactors were funding him.

Just a week after his return to Australia in September 1917, Jackson was part of a World War I recruitment team at Armidale for which he was, presumably, being paid and of which a photograph survives.

Nonetheless, by the end of January 1919, the Wollongong premises was being called “Jackson’s Harp Hotel” in the local press.

To wherever Jackson decamped from Wollongong is unclear. Yet it was reported in Wollongong in August 1922 that “Jackson, VC, who at one time kept the Harp Hotel, Wollongong, is now on the land out in the back blocks”.

Moreover, for a time his war pension was being paid at the Merriwa Post Office even though his father then claimed to be unaware of his current whereabouts.

Whatever the case, Jackson had been evacuated from fighting in Europe with his arm amputated.

He arrived back in Australia on 15 September 1917 and was immediately being used to encourage recruiting – although trying to boost flagging enlistment by displaying a man who had lost his arm because of the war seems counterintuitive.

Nonetheless, according to his Australian Dictionary of Biography entry, Jackson eventually returned to his birthplace near Merriwa NSW and “began dealing in horses and animal skins”.

But the same article gets it wrong by suggesting that Jackson “in 1927 became licensee of the Figtree hotel in Wollongong” – that particular William Jackson was a Stanmore hotel keeper and married with four children.

Under the name of “William J Jackson”, the Victoria Cross winner, however, did not marry until 1932 – to a dressmaker named Ivy Muriel Alma Morris.

But the marriage ended in divorce in 1955 and Jackson, again seemingly assisted by benefactors, moved to Melbourne and became commissionaire and inquiry attendant at the Melbourne Town Hall.

Jackson’s Victoria Cross medal remains one of the few not currently held at the Australian War Memorial.

On 28 May 2008 both it and his campaign medals were sold privately to an unidentified Australian collector. The price paid is thought to be around $650,000.

Jackson’s December 1916 Victoria Cross citation states: “For most conspicuous bravery. On the return from a successful raid, several members of the raiding party were seriously wounded in ‘No Man’s Land’ by shellfire. Private Jackson got back safely and, after handing over a prisoner whom he had brought in, immediately went out again under very heavy shellfire and assisted in bringing in a wounded man. He then went out again, and with a sergeant was bringing another wounded man when his arm was blown off by a shell and the sergeant was rendered unconscious. He then returned to our trenches, obtained assistance, and went out again to look for his two wounded comrades. He set a splendid example of pluck and determination. His work has always been marked by the greatest coolness and bravery.”