Famous Cricketers No 89 - F.S.Jackson

Co-opted to chair the England Selection Committee for the visit of the 1934 Australians, the luck that had attended his captaincy in 1905, deserted him. His later years were spent largely out of the public eye but inactivity was not in Jackson’s nature. On Lord Hawke’s death in 1938 he assumed the Presidency of the Yorkshire Club. In 1942 he became Chairman of the Governors of Harrow School. Stanley Jackson died on 9th March 1947. He had been knocked down by a taxi the previous year, and never really recovered. At the time of his death he was the last surviving member of the England team that had contested the Lord’s Test in 1896. Cricket had lost one of its great men. A.W.Pullin said of Jackson: ‘In the annals of cricket (he) will always appear on the front page. Next to the late Dr.W.G.Grace … Jackson represents the ideal of the national cricketer. He played the game as it came; any thought of building up a big score for his personal gratification was absolutely foreign to his idea of cricket and his conception of its ethics.’ C.B.Fry, observing that the Jackson household seemed in awe of his old friend, commented that if Jackson was the Almighty, then one was bound to say that he was infinitely ‘stronger on the legside’. Perhaps, A.A.Thomson was closer to the literal truth when he wrote: ‘Jackson, in personal character and in cricketing genius, was unique. There has been nobody like him since.’ There probably never will be. 1890 While on damp early season wickets Jackson took 25 wickets in his initial four first-class matches, including 12 in one match against Yorkshire, his batting was slow to flower, with his first fifty not coming until his fourteenth innings. Own Team O M R W Opp Ct Total Total 1. Cambridge University v C.I.Thornton’s XI, Fenner’s, May 12, 13 (Cambridge University won by four wickets) c G.F.Vernon b J.Briggs 17 130 68 not out 19 73-6 133 2. Cambridge University v A.J.Webbe’s Team, Fenner’s, May 19, 20, 21 (A.J.Webbe’s Team won by eleven wickets) (12-a-side match) c W.C.Hedley b A.J.Webbe 21 187 28 6 75 4 P.J.de Paravicini c H.Hale 363 G.F.Vernon c G.MacGregor T.S.Pearson b A.D.Pougher b b A.D.Pougher 6 212 3 1 10 0 39-0 3. Cambridge University v MCC, Fenner’s, May 22, 23 (MCC won by nine wickets) lbw b W.Attewell 20 133 29 5 74 4 C.Pigg b 267 M.T.Baines b J.S.Robinson b D.G.Spiro b b G.A.Davidson 41 175 7 2 20 1 J.S.Robinson c R.N. Douglas 44-1 9