Thomas Jackson
Evangelist & Social Reformer

In October 1876 Thomas Jackson, the evangelist and social reformer, born in 1850 in Belper, Derbyshire, arrived in London and set up home with his wife is Sidney Street, Whitechapel.

His poorly paid work at the Bethnal Green and other missions often endangered his health but he soldiered on in his battle to improve the conditions of those suffering from drunkenness, destitution, ill health, malnutrition and ignorance.

Often he would visit and conduct a service in a notorious thieves kitchen off Ratcliffe Highway where chairs and tables were screwed to the floor to prevent them being used in a fight.

The Primitive Methodist Mission, Home for Friendless and Orphan Lads, one of his main concerns, was situated in Whitechapel Road. One of the lads saved by the mission was a namesake of William Shakespeare, who had stolen his mother's savings and ridden from Derbyshire to London on a bicycle. This penitent was found work with the London Railway Company and eventually became an important personage with the South African Railways. Records of all the boys who passed through the Institute were kept.