Whisky distiller, who established the world-famous Irish brand. Born in Alloa (Clackmannanshire), into a seafaring family, he appointed as Sheriff Clerk in the 1760s. In 1768, he married Margaret (Peggie) Haig, the daughter of John Haig (1720-73) thus joining the powerful Stein-Haig whisky-making dynasty. Supported by his wife's family, he seems to have managed their Lochrin Distillery in Edinburgh and moved to Dublin in 1780, where he gained a share in a distillery there. He was the first to triple-distill Irish whiskey and paid close attention to the quality of his product, buying the best grain, maturing his whisky for longer than his competitors and ensuring consistency of the finished spirit. He took sole ownership of the Bow Street Distillery in 1805 and it soon took the name John Jameson & Sons.
Several of his sixteen children married back into the Haig and Stein families, and remained in the whisky industry both in Ireland and Scotland. John Stein, owned another Dublin distillery and his daughter married Jameson's son. Jameson was also the great-grandfather of Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of radio. Jameson commissioned the artist Henry Raeburn (1756 - 1823) to paint portraits of himself and his wife, which now hang in the National Gallery of Ireland. Jameson returned to Alloa, where he died and lies buried in Greenside Cemetery. In 2023, a ceremony was held and a wreath laid by the Clackmannanshire Provost to commemorate 200 years since his death. Part of Jameson's Bow Street Distillery remains as a popular visitor centre in Dublin.
