Margery Jackson | |
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.jpg) Jackson in old age, c. 1811 | |
| Born | January 1722 Carlisle, Cumberland, England |
| Died | 10 February 1812 (aged 90) Botcherby, Cumberland, England |
| Occupation(s) | Landlady, litigant and miser |
| Known for | Local character; subject of books, paintings and a musical |
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Margery Jackson (January 1722 – 10 February 1812) was a British landlady in Carlisle, Cumberland. She was the daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant who was the mayor of Carlisle. In her latter years, following a fifteen-year legal dispute in the Court of Chancery over the execution of her father's and brother's wills, she returned from London to Carlisle in possession of the family fortune. She was then 69 years old and a spinster.
Thereafter, while living like a pauper in the family townhouse on Carlisle's market square, Jackson accrued a box of gold in rent from her properties. She became a local character, well-known for her miserly behaviour, her drinking, swearing and forthright speech, and her hidden riches, leading her to be nicknamed the Carlisle Miser. She was kind to her horses and dogs. In spite of her reclusive lifestyle, she had a friend in her financial advisor, Joseph Bowman of Botcherby, who took her into his home during her last illness.
Since her death in 1812, Jackson has been remembered in books, verse, a musical, and Tullie House Museum displays, for her eccentric behaviour, and for the size of her fortune, most of which she left to Bowman. Jackson was caricatured as a miser in the traditional manner until the publication in 1991 of a book by Helen R. Hallaway, which reassesses her position as an independent woman in the society of her era.