Jessop’s career as a recovery diver stretched from the late 1950s, but he is particularly well known for his 1981 recovery of gold from the wreck of the cruiser HMS Edinburgh, in the Barents Sea.
Sunk in 1942 in 244m of water, the ship carried 465 ingots of gold weighing about ten tons, as payment from Stalin for war supplies. Working in challenging conditions, Jessop’s team recovered a reported 431 of them, worth tens of millions of pounds.
Most of the haul went to the British and Russian governments, Jessop retaining a portion as the salvage award.
Later, Jessop left Britain to live abroad while continuing underwater recovery work. Projects included unsuccessful hunts for treasure horded by the pirate Henry Morgan and for the wreck of Christopher Columbus’s Santa Maria.
Goldfinder, Jessop’s autobiography, was published in 2001.
Jessop enjoyed his closing years living in France with his partner. He is survived by her and by two sons and a daughter from his earlier marriage.
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