On 11 August 1909, Lucy Jackling, wife of Percival Jackling, gave birth to her first child, a son, David. Nearly four years later on 10 May 1913, he was joined by a brother, Roger. The boys grew up to be talented and capable men like their father and all had a strong sense of philanthropy.
In 1909, Percy (as he was always known) and Lucy Jackling were living at ‘Lloyd’s Bank House’ at 148 (now 15) High Street Hythe. They were, in fact, living ‘over the shop’ in the accommodation provided upstairs from the bank where Percy was the manager. When Roger was still a baby, war broke out and Percy served as a captain in the Machine Gun Corps. He also helped to establish the regiment’s Prisoner of War Relief Fund of which, as a banker, he naturally became the honorary treasurer. He was awarded the CBE in 1920 for his work in the organisation.
The original site of Lloyd’s Bank in Hythe High Street
After the war, he became treasurer of the Hythe Ex-servicemen’s Association. When that was wound up in 1921, Percy made himself useful as vice-president of the Hythe British Legion and led fundraising to provide a bungalow for a severely disabled ex-serviceman.
Meanwhile, his sons were being educated locally at Seabrook Lodge Preparatory School and in 1922, the family moved up the hill to 70 North Road, Hythe. Lloyd’s Bank was moving from its premises into larger, rather grander accommodation at 62 High Street, where it remained until its closure in 2018. Percy stayed with them and also managed a sub-branch at Dymchurch. By way of leisure, he was a member of both Hythe Cricket Club and the Bowls Club and was on the committee of the Hythe Institute.
Lloyd’s Bank Hythe 1922-2018
Roger attended Felsted School and perhaps David did, too. David was articled to a firm of Folkestone solicitors and having qualified, went to work for ‘a well-known city firm’. Roger meanwhile went to London University where he achieved a Diploma in Public Administration and took part in amateur dramatic productions. Later, he passed the Law Society’s book-keeping examination.
David married his childhood sweetheart, Eileen Edwards, known as Betty in 1933. It is unclear what Roger’s occupation was, but it involved transatlantic travel and by 1938 he was living in New York where he met and married a British-Candian RADA-trained actor and journalist, Joan Tustin.
Joan Tustin
War broke out again and the brothers served their country in different ways. David joined the Coldstream Guards, eventually reaching the rank of Colonel. He was Chief of the Plans and Operations Division at Allied Forces HQ from September 1943 to July 1945 and also worked on relief programmes for Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece. Later, he worked for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in Germany and he was awarded the OBE and the US Legion of Merit in 1947.
Roger, meanwhile, had joined the British diplomatic service in 1939 as acting vice-consul in the British consulate in New York. His abilities and energy were soon recognised – he became known as ‘crackerjackling’ – and after a brief spell in Ecuador he was posted to the embassy at Washington DC, where he remained until 1947.
After the war, David, who had a strong dislike of socialism, became the Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for North Kensington, but stood down before the General Election ‘for health and other reasons’. In fact, North Kensington was not his first choice, which was the Hythe constituency, but he was not selected there, being defeated by Brigadier Harry Ripley Mackeson, scion of the brewing family.
He and Betty diivorced, and in 1948, he married Margaret Beyfus.
Roger was also back in the UK, working for the cabinet secretariat of Prime Minister Clement Atlee. From there he went to The Hague and to Bonn, then the capital of West Germany, as economic adviser and later minister.
He then spent some time in London working for the cabinet secretariat of Clement Atlee and went from there to The Hague and back to Bonn.
Percy died in 1954 in Patrixbourne, near Canterbury, where he had retired. During these last years, he devoted much time to the Friends of the Kent and Canterbury Hospital. David, too, was involved in helping hospital patients, in his case those of the Princess Louise Hospital for Children in Kensington for whom he arranged a permanent holiday home in Littlehampton.
David worked as a business consultant during the 1950s and lived in Lymington, Hampshire. On 26 May 1960 he drove to Lymington Police Station, parked his car outside and shot himself in the head, dying instantly. He left five notes to family members and it appears that he had money worries. His brother told the inquest that these could easily have been resolved if only David had told him.
David Jackling in 1940
By then, Roger was once again based in the USA, as Assistant Under-Secretary in Washington. In 1965, the year in which he was knighted, he was President of the Security Council. He returned to Bonn as Ambassador in 1968 and over the next four years held negotiations with the other allies, resulting in the Four Powers Agreement in 1971. He led the UK delegation to the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea from its inception in 1973 until he retired in 1976.
Sir Roger Jackling
Sir Roger retired to America, where he died in 1986.
Writing Hythe History 