Cecil Jackson-Cole
In 1911 they lived at Whitehall Road, Grays, Essex and his father was a Credit Boot and Shoe Dealer and his mother a Retail China and Glass Merchant.
[9] In 1914, the family lived on Ashton Street, in Poplar, London and Cecil and Winifred attended Prospect Terrace School.
He got a job as an Office Boy at George and John Nicksons General Provision Merchants on Tooley Street, London and left in 1918.
At the age of 28 Cecil enrolled at Balliol College, Oxford, as an external student to study economics and improve his business skills.
[7] Cecil Jackson-Cole was a successful business man as the owner and manager of Andrews Furnishers with branches in London and Oxford.
In 1946, Leslie Swain and Raymond Andrews joined Jackson-Cole in business, both answering an advertisement from 'a Company which gives a third of its profits to the staff, a third to charity and the remaining third for the organisation'.
Raymond Andrews was engaged to manage it, and Leslie Swain to set up its mortgage and insurance broking department.
[17] Andrews is owned by three charitable trusts which derive most of their income from annual dividends, and has helped to found a number of large charities including Oxfam and Action Aid.
[7] The work carried out by Andrews' staff in the organisation of charities was mostly done through an informal committee set up in 1953 and known as the Help for Vital Causes Group.
He had an all consuming vocation to relieve suffering in the world and he constructed an elaborate alliance of businesses, trusts and charities to achieve his aims.
In March 1974, when Jackson Cole, founder of HelpAge International visited India, Samson Daniel, a philanthropist, approached him for financial help to set up a member organisation in Delhi.
After a three-month training course in London, Daniel and his wife returned to India and organised a sponsored walk with schoolchildren in Delhi.
[21] When the Committee met in September 1948 to discuss whether to close down, Jackson-Cole had laid the groundwork for a decision in favour of widening the scope of its activities.
[21] Jackson-Cole's most important contribution to Oxfam, and to the charitable movement in Britain generally, was to discard this conceptual straitjacket.
In doing so, he trod on toes, and ruffled feathers, but his vision and persistence, backed by his reliance on his own company to provide risk capital, eventually changed the face of charitable activity in the UK.
In 1930, he bought Warden Manor in Sheppey, and let Toc H use it as a holiday retreat for the elderly and a resting place for soldiers.
