Sir Henry Mather Jackson, 2nd Baronet, DL (23 July 1831 – 8 March 1881)^[1] was a British Liberal Party^[2] politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Coventry from 1867 to 1868, and from 1874 to 1881, when he became a High Court judge.

Jackson was the eldest son of the Sir William Jackson, 1st Baronet (1805–1876) of Birkenhead,^[3] a businessman who made his first fortune from palm oil imports, a second fortune in property development, before becoming an industrialist and railway entrepreneur and later a Liberal MP. His mother was Elizabeth née Hughes, from Liverpool.^[3]

He was educated at Harrow and matriculated in 1850 at Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1853 with a B.A. in Classics.^[3] He was called to the bar in 1855 at Lincoln's Inn,^[3] and took silk in 1873.^[4][5]

His address was listed in 1881 as Llantilio Court, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire.^[3] The house was located at Llantilio Crossenny, about six miles east of Abergavenny. Jackson had bought it in 1873 from Henry Morgan-Clifford, the former MP for Hereford,^[6] and after his death it remained the home of his son Sir Henry Mather Jackson, 3rd Baronet. The house was demolished in 1922,^[7] leaving only the foundations and undercroft,^[8][9] although the landscaped park remains.^[10]

Llantilio Court and the baronetcy were inherited by his son, the 3rd Baronet, who was appointed in 1916 to a tribunal to consider appeals in Monmouthshire against conscription under the Military Service Act 1916.^[11] As Chairman of the Monmouthshire Appeals Tribunal,^[12] the third baronet was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in June 1918, for "services in connection with the war".^[12]

Jackson first stood for Parliament at the 1865 general election, when he was unsuccessful in his native borough of Birkenhead.^[2] After the death in 1867 of Morgan Treherne, one of the two MPs for Coventry, Jackson won the resulting by-election on 23 July 1867.^[13] The result was declared void after an election petition,^[13][14] but fellow Liberal Samuel Carter was elected in his place.^[15] When he and Jackson stood again at the 1868 general election, both seats were won by Conservatives.^[13] Jackson was returned to the House of Commons at the 1874 general election,^[16] and was re-elected in 1880.^[17]

He was commissioned in June 1876 as a Deputy Lieutenant^[3] of Monmouthshire,^[18] a position also held from May 1885 by his son, Sir Henry Mather Jackson, 3rd Baronet.^[19] In 1879, Jackson was appointed to a Royal Commission to enquire into the condition of Cathedrals in England and Wales and their clergy.^[20] He left Parliament in 1881 when he was appointed as a judge of the Queen's Bench division^[13] of the High Court,^[21] but died shortly afterwards, aged 49.^[1]