Remembrance Day 2025: RAP Jackson’s enduring gift

Every year, dozens of budding CommBank staff-related university scholars put in a bid for a long-running internal scholarship after finishing their Year 12 studies.

The successful applicants are no doubt grateful for the support designed to benefit their future education provided through a bequest from a former employee dating back to 1988.

But the name in which their scholarships are awarded will mean very little to them apart from a brief blurb that introduces them to the application process.

At first glance, Roland Alaric Pryce Jackson – better known as “RAP” – was a classic quiet achiever and a Commonwealth Bank “lifer”.

Start as a clerk in Brisbane

He had joined CBA in the very early days of the bank in 1913. Working his way up from postage clerk at the first branch in Brisbane and through the ranks as accountant, branch manager, inspecting officer, he finally became Chief Inspector of the Trading Bank.

It was a career that had spanned 46 years when he retired in 1959. On his death at the age of 93 he bequeathed his whole estate in trust to create the scholarships in perpetuity.

But behind his meritorious civilian life at the bank lies a story of courage and commitment - one rarely told since at one point he was never expected to come back from war.

At the age of 21, Jackson enlisted in the 25th infantry battalion of the Australian Imperial Forces, the forerunner of the Australian Army, on the 29^th July 1915. Following initial training, he and his colleagues sailed for the Western Front in France from Brisbane.

Wounded in action

Transferred to the 9th Battalion, Jackson was quickly in action, fighting the Germans in the Somme Valley in mid-1916.  At the height of the Battle of Pozieres in July while attacking enemy trenches surrounding the village Jackson was initially listed as killed in action.

Later discovered alive, he was almost as good as dead. He’d suffered gunshot wounds to the face and leg and a severe bullet wound to his right shoulder.  Evacuated to England for treatment, he spent the next six months in Norwich Military Hospital before officially returning to his unit in January 1917.

Still recuperating from his wounds, Jackson was assigned to the Commonwealth Bank in the UK under an arrangement designed to plug the gaps in branches caused by severe staff shortages following the introduction of conscription in Britain.

Jackson continued in this role until 1919 when he was decommissioned and able to return to Australia where he resumed his career at Brisbane branch.

'A man of the highest principles'

On his retirement, the staff magazine Bank Notes described Jackson as having won an “enviable reputation as a man of the highest principles with a deep understanding of human nature”.

It is a reputation which continues to resonate to this day through his generosity of spirit, care and commitment.