John Enderby Jackson (14 January 1827 – 10 April 1903) was an English musician, composer, and the self-described founder of the British brass band competition and the cheap day railway excursion.
[3]: 49 After training in the family business of candle-making and soap boiling, Jackson became involved in music and learned a variety of instruments.
[4] He attended Hull Grammar School and received private music tuition alongside it, becoming proficient on the flute, French horn, and piano.
He later claimed to have watched Louis Jullien's extravagant and talented orchestra perform while placing candles in Hull's Theatre Royal, which inspired him to leave the family business and focus on music instead.
[2]: 79–80 While there is minor evidence of small brass band contests prior to Jackson, it is believed that the modern form is traced to his actions.
[1]: 576 Jackson's first "Open Brass Band Contest" was held at Manchester's Belle Vue Zoological Gardens in 1853, organised in part with bandsmen James Melling and Tallis Trimmel.
[5][1]: 576 He composed Yorkshire Waltzes as a test piece for the Grand Brass Band Contest at Hull's Zoological Gardens on 30 June 1856.
[7] In 1858, Jackson held a successful handbell-ringing competition at The Crystal Palace in London; he had been approached by its manager Robert Kanzow Bowley to bring together twelve teams from Lancashire and Yorkshire.
The 1860 Crystal Palace event was split into two contests on consecutive days: each had six preliminary rounds held around the grounds, with the finals taking place in the concert pavilion.
He had compiled information on each band from their entry forms, including their identity, recent history, musical configuration and style, and the means by which they would travel to Sydenham.
On the day before the contest, representatives from each band assembled in the Exeter Hall to be briefed on proceedings and pick lots for the order of play.
The winners were Robert Thompson Crawshay's Cyfarthfa Band from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, who played an arrangement of the overture to Verdi's opera Nabucco.
The 1861 event saw a solo competition for bass players, which was won by a performer from the Keighley band: he was given a sonorophone E-flat contrabass as a prize.
He also managed to secure cheaper fares for the supporters of bands, taking advantage of the railway industry's potential in the entertainment business.
[2]: 142 During the 1890s, Jackson published a series of articles in the magazine Musical Opinion,[2]: ix and in 1891 he proposed plans to join Scarborough's North and South Bay.