25 Facts About Cecil Jackson-Cole

Cecil Jackson-Cole was associated with a number of charities including Oxfam, Help the Aged and ActionAid.

Cecil Jackson-Cole was a co-founder of the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief which became the largest charity of its kind in the British Commonwealth.

Cecil Jackson-Cole was the founder of the Andrews Charitable Trust the first modern Venture Philanthropy organisation.

In 1946, Cecil Jackson-Cole founded Andrews and Partners Estate Agents as a business with an ulterior purpose: the development of charities.

Cecil Jackson-Cole was born on 1 November 1901 at 27 Knox Road, Forest Gate, the elder child and only son of Albert Edward Cole, a dealer in new and secondhand furniture, and his wife, Nellie Catherine Jackson.

Cecil Jackson-Cole had an unsettled childhood, as his father moved so frequently that he spent an average of only nine months at each of the many schools he attended.

In 1914, the family lived on Ashton Street, in Poplar, London and Cecil Jackson-Cole and Winifred attended Prospect Terrace School.

Cecil Jackson-Cole decided to leave education to start working full-time and provide for his family at the age of 13.

Cecil Jackson-Cole 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 Jackson-Cole enrolled at Balliol College, Oxford, as an external student to study economics and improve his business skills.

Cecil Jackson-Cole was a successful business man as the owner and manager of Andrews Furnishers with branches in London and Oxford.

Cecil Jackson-Cole believed that, to be successful, a charity had to be run as a business.

Cecil Jackson-Cole created a Trust funded through Andrews and Partners called the Voluntary Christian Service.

Cecil Jackson-Cole first became involved in charitable work through the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, Watford.

Cecil Jackson-Cole set up trusts not only to support charitable work but primarily to underpin his involvement in charity.

Cecil Jackson-Cole 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.

Cecil Jackson-Cole became the business brain and dynamic driving force behind this relief and development agency.

The committee decided unanimously against this, and Cecil Jackson-Cole spearheaded the growth and expansion of the charity.

Cecil Jackson-Cole's vision led to the setting up of autonomous Oxfams in Canada, Quebec, the US, and Belgium.

Cecil Jackson-Cole founded Action Aid under the Voluntary Christian Service in 1972 as a child sponsorship charity.

Cecil Jackson-Cole found 88 UK supporters to sponsor 88 children in India and Kenya.

Cecil Jackson-Cole was on the central finance committee at Toc H for a number of years.

Cecil Jackson-Cole endowed the Phyllis Trust with shares from Andrews in 1965.

Cecil Jackson-Cole created the charity because there was little Christian literature to help him when his wife Phyllis died, and limited information available when he was growing up.

Cecil Jackson-Cole died of pancreatic cancer on 9 August 1979 at Burrswood Hospital in Kent.