Fifty Years of Progress 1880-1930

A.A.A. JUBILEE SOUVENIR again in I 88 I, when his time was 4 min. 24} sec.-fast time in those days. He also recognised in Wise the qualities which made him Agent-General for New South Wales, before his early death. In a period of twenty-two years Jackson found and encouraged nineteen winners of the Mile for Oxford at the Oxford and Cambridge Sports, and for forty years he was the Oxford Steward at the meeting. If he had been living, "fit and well," he would have been delighted to work for the establishment of an athletic ground worthy of the A.A.A. and his old colleague, Montague Shearman. At Oxford he was always determined to rescue Athletics from incongruous surroundings, and place it in a dignified setting. He found rough grass tracks on Cowley Marsh, and left behind him an O.U.A.C. running ground and cinder path. So far, the C. N. Jackson Memorial Cup at the Oxford and Cambridge Sports has fallen to Cambridge, and at the A.A.A. Championships has not been won by Oxford athletes. All the same, no one would have been better pleased than our first Treasurer to see the prowess of the Light Blues, or to know that in the year before the Association's Jubilee an Essex long-distance runner, H. W. Payne, and a Portsmouth sprinter, J. T. Hanlon, would jointly hold the trophy for the best British perform– ance in the Championships. We are told that" judgment on men of eminence should be pronounced with diffidence and consideration," otherwise we might have written at greater length, with greater emphasis, of the part played by C. N. Jackson in the formation of the Association, in the progress of amateur athletics. But we have tried to paint a little picture of one of the founders from facts in our possession, from all we have heard of his enthusiasm and his personality. " Some are, and must be, greater than the rest." 30