Serving ‘the Cause’: Cecil Jackson-Cole and the professionalization of charity in post-war Britain^*

Abstract

Over the mid to late nineteenth century in Britain, an ethos developed in organized charity that money needed to be raised and spent well, with considerations for maximizing contributions, and the effective and cost-efficient use of those funds.¹ In the early decades of the twentieth century, the fundraising and campaign practices that developed from this ‘professionally-minded’² charity philosophy multiplied as organizations were propelled by advancements in the wider social sphere including in print, radio communication, marketing and advertising.³ Newspapers and radio stations were carrying increasingly sophisticated fund appeals, and the two World Wars internationalized images of suffering on a scale that had not been seen before in Britain.⁴ With these developments in organized fundraising and campaigning, as well as in service delivery, the charity sector was emerging in the mid twentieth century as a viable career path for many aspiring young professionals who wanted to make a difference in the world. It was also an increasingly attractive vehicle for social change for more experienced businessmen and -women wishing to employ their skills in more meaningful work. Thus, as the Second World War was coming to an end and it was clear that relief and rehabilitation efforts would be needed over the longer term, the number of non-governmental organizations (N.G.O.s) with ‘professional middle-class “social entrepreneurs”’ on their founding committees grew considerably.⁵ This article is focused on examining the contributions to the charity sector of one such businessman and charity founder, Cecil Jackson-Cole, who was a co-founder of Oxfam, founder of Help the Aged, ActionAid and HelpAge International, among other organizations.

Founding individuals have played important roles in framing or inspiring organizational identity, cementing a certain operational and moral ethos, and/or structuring particular ways of working within N.G.O.s throughout history. For example, Amnesty International – by its own telling – owes much to the work and ‘inspiration’ of Peter Benenson, a British lawyer who founded the movement in 1961 as a campaign for the release of six prisoners of conscience. Benenson’s early principles of nonviolence, witnessing, and the development of a human connection through letter-writing to prisoners continue to characterize the N.G.O.’s activities and philosophy today.⁶ In another example, Victor Gollancz – a publisher through his eponymous company, political commentator and founder of (among other things) the Save Europe Now appeal in 1945 – used his high-profile and formidable business and political skillset to persuade the British people to be concerned about German refugees at a time of heightened xenophobia.⁷ He is credited with transforming campaign approaches, which were then used by many other wartime relief committees, including Oxfam.⁸

Alongside these acknowledgements of founder contributions to the development of charity work and humanitarianism, there is also an increasing scrutiny in humanitarian scholarship on some of the mythmaking that accompanies these foundation narratives. This critique has come both in the form of challenging rose-tinted founder narratives,⁹ as well as highlighting the work of previously ‘forgotten’ founding figures. Eglantyne Jebb, for example, has long been celebrated for her contribution to shaping child-centred humanitarianism and child rights through her founding of the Save the Children Fund in 1919. However, recent work by Emily Baughan and Juliano Fiori has shown that the charity owes a significant amount more in its early years to the ‘forgotten founder’ Dorothy Buxton, Jebb’s sister, who shifted the Fund’s work from more radical political campaigning to fundraising for ‘innocent’ children.¹⁰ Examining Buxton’s early vision for the organization, Baughan and Fiori have argued, is important for understanding the ethos behind much of Save the Children’s programmatic and campaign work today.¹¹ What this founder-focused scholarship highlights more broadly is that, if we are to build a more comprehensive picture of the history of organized charity and humanitarianism, there is a need both for more information on individuals involved in the formation of these organizations, and a critical reading of their contributions. As such – tying in scholarship looking at the professionalization of the charity sector in modern Britain and the role of founders in affecting organizational agendas – this article examines the work of Cecil-Jackson Cole.

Jackson-Cole was a London-born sales-businessman, philanthropist and devout Christian whose self-designated purpose was in ‘Christian matters’ expressed through the establishment of charity organizations.¹² In the charity industry Jackson-Cole was a co-founder of Oxfam (1942), founder of the Voluntary and Christian Service (1953),¹³ Help the Aged (1961), the Anchor Housing Association (formerly Help the Aged (Oxford) Housing Association, 1968), HelpAge India (1978), U.K.-based Helping Hands Gift Shops,¹⁴ ActionAid (previously Action in Distress, 1971), the Phyllis Trust (1965, now known as the Andrews Charitable Trust),¹⁵ the Christian Book Promotion Trust (1967),¹⁶ and the Christian Initiative Trust (1967),¹⁷ among a range of other small appeals. Of these organizations, the latter three were grant-making bodies that financially supported many of Jackson-Cole’s charities as well as pursuing, in the case of the final two, the cause of disseminating Christian values through religious literature. In the business world, Jackson-Cole bought out and managed W. Andrews and Sons Furnishers (later named Andrews Furnishers Ltd.),¹⁸ Church Brothers Estate Agency,¹⁹ founded Andrews and Partners Estate Agency (which is still in existence), 139 Flat Service, and a number of smaller initiatives such as the Business Community Council.²⁰ Many of these organizations are now defunct but merit reference as the motivation behind their formation was largely to provide financial and staff support to Jackson-Cole’s plethora of charitable organizations.

While some of Cecil Jackson-Cole’s contributions to the charity sector have certainly been acknowledged in recent scholarship,²¹ there remains a lack of detail around the interconnectedness and impact of his charities, and the influence of his personal values on these endeavours. As a professional salesman and devout Christian, Cecil Jackson-Cole offers an interesting individual case study, as his method for professionalizing charity was to emphasize fundraising as the primary activity for any social change.²² His experience in the sales business underwrote his approach to fundraising and the result was a commercial appeal ethos that ran through the heart of all of his charity organizations. Moreover, Jackson-Cole’s personal Christian belief system was also fundamental to the way that he understood suffering and approached the organization of charity, as he firmly believed that his entrepreneurial abilities were a gift from God for the specific purpose of professionalizing humanitarian relief in the form of organized fundraising.²³ He sought to hire individuals for his businesses and charities with a similar strength of faith, and gained a reputation as an – at times unpleasant and dogmatic – proponent of a greater ‘Cause’.

In exploring this sense of service he felt to a greater spiritual cause, and examining the way that it manifested itself through organized charity enterprise, I seek to support scholarship that emphasizes the importance of business methods in shaping charity organizations and social service in post-war Britain,²⁴ and connect to discussions around the role of faith in the burgeoning, and ostensibly secular, charity sector in this period.²⁵ I also aim to contribute new empirical data to the growing literature on the expansion and professionalization of the charity sector across the twentieth century.

To begin such a history, the following section will introduce Jackson-Cole’s entry into the world of business at a young age and will trace his trajectory from sales business to charity fundraising. This will be followed by an analysis of how Jackson-Cole explored and expanded notions of religiosity and Christian duty through his charitable enterprises, and it will contextualize these professional initiatives (along with the contribution of Jackson-Cole’s colleagues) in relation to wider developments in organized charity, faith and business in the period. This article has built on a range of sources, including Jackson-Cole’s personal papers, private documents held by his family members and old colleagues, Oxfam’s archives, and oral history interviews with those that knew him personally and professionally.

Cecil Jackson-Cole was born Albert Cecil Cole in London in 1901. He was the son of trader and shopkeeper Albert Edward Cole and, when his father enlisted in 1914 after the outbreak of the First World War, the young Jackson-Cole dropped out of school and began full-time work in the Tooley Street branch of importers and merchants George and John Nickson.²⁶ In 1919 the enterprising Jackson-Cole left Nickson’s and bought out (as owner and manager) the ailing second-hand furniture business owned by his father, W. Andrews and Sons in Islington, and he later expanded the business to five branches throughout London and one in Oxford. Andrews (Furnishers) Ltd., as W. Andrews and Sons was later named, continued trading until 1970 and, as a sister enterprise, Jackson-Cole also established the Andrews and Partners estate agency business in 1946.²⁷

Many who knew Jackson-Cole have described him as an often cantankerous risk-taking entrepreneur who would determinedly pursue his own ideas, despite sometimes clear limitations of, or unrealistic expectations for, the output.²⁸ It was in this vein that Jackson-Cole set about transforming his business empire into a philanthropic revenue stream for various charity organizations. He was involved in charity work early on with the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home in Watford, and in 1932 offered one of his properties – Warden Manor in Kent – to the charity Toc H to be a rest and recuperation site for returnee soldiers.²⁹

Following the outbreak of the Second World War Jackson-Cole, who registered as a conscientious objector, moved to Oxford with his first wife Phyllis Jackson-Cole.³⁰ And, as Jackson-Cole later recalled, he coincidently moved into a house opposite the Oxford University professor, Sir Gilbert Murray – an internationalist and pacifist, ‘devoted to the organisation of peace’.³¹ Their connection was augmented by Jackson-Cole’s pacifist stance, and he later stated that it was a friendship that changed his philanthropic direction indefinitely.³² On 5 October 1942, Murray and a group of concerned Oxford residents met to discuss how to increase opposition to the British blockade of Greece and support suffering Greek civilians affected by the blockade. It was here that the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief was officially formed,³³ and – on the occasion of the second meeting – Jackson-Cole attended and offered to take responsibility for all of the fundraising required for their appeal to aid the suffering Greeks.³⁴

For Jackson-Cole, the first priority of a charitable project or organization was to raise funds. He believed that, ‘if the money were not raised, it could not be spent, and both the getting and the spending of the money demanded first-class management’.³⁵ Initial methods of letter-writing, temporary shop-window appeals, radio-fundraising, and charity sales raised thousands of pounds and one of the most successful activities during that appeal was the rental of an entire shop in Oxford’s busy city centre for the purpose of receiving material donations and selling them on.³⁶ Donations were channelled through Red Cross programmes working in Greece and, less than a year after the formation of the Oxford Committee, the group registered through the War Charities Act and turned into an independent charity.³⁷ Then, in 1947, Jackson-Cole transformed a temporary fundraising practice into a permanent site for income generation and organization logistics, with the lease of their first rented premises, 17 Broad Street in Oxford, as the Committee’s permanent donation depot, headquarters and shop. Oxfam historian Maggie Black has noted that if Jackson-Cole had not so aggressively pursued the Oxford Committee’s humanitarian mission in the first instance, and had not sought to implement a solid financial foundation, the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief ‘would probably have sunk without a trace, if not in 1943 or 1944, then certainly after the immediate post-war period’.³⁸

Jackson-Cole in his private memoirs later attributed much of what was achieved in the formation of the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief to an altruistic climate prevalent in Oxford between 1937 and 1942.³⁹ Certainly, Oxford and the Committee were associated with the work of many prominent humanitarian individuals and organizations, such as Vera Brittain and the Peace Pledge Union, and Edith Pye and the Society of Friends. Co-founder of Oxfam, Gilbert Murray, had himself been the vice president of the League of Nations Society from 1916 and chairman of the League of Nations Union from 1923 to 1938, becoming co-president after that.⁴⁰ In addition to this ‘altruistic’ atmosphere prevailing in Oxford, the continuation of the Oxford Famine Relief Committee also required some organizational steam.

For this, Jackson-Cole used his commercial business to continue the charity’s build up, despite reluctance from other founding members.⁴¹ From his estate agency firm Andrews and Partners, Jackson-Cole appointed Leslie Swain and Raymond Andrews (no relation to the firm) to be ‘Interim Administrator’ and ‘General Secretary’ respectively, for the Oxford Committee. They were to receive a small wage from the charity, which was complemented by remuneration from Andrews and Partners and this arrangement was to ensure rapid growth for the Committee, while at the same time keeping the financial risk that comes with organizational innovation within the commercial business of Andrews and Partners.⁴² According to Andrews, a branch of the estate agency was opened in Oxford specifically for the purpose of enabling Swain to dedicate sufficient time to both the Famine Relief Committee and the business.⁴³ Under the support of Jackson-Cole, Swain ploughed ahead with the transformation of the Broad Street shop into a permanent profit-making concern, and in 1949 the Committee appointed Joe Mitty to be the shop’s first full-time, paid manager with the following remuneration:⁴⁴ ‘The Administrator [Leslie Swain] reported that Mr J. Mitty had been appointed to assist him at a salary of £425 per annum … It has been agreed with Mr Mitty that, if his services were satisfactory, he should receive an increase to £450 per annum at the end of six months’.⁴⁵ This was a significant income during the period. The average weekly earnings in late 1945 for men aged twenty-one and over in manufacturing and certain other industries – such as textiles, clothing, food and drink and engineering – were just over 119 shillings per week, amounting to an annual income of almost £310.⁴⁶ Thus, not only did Oxfam recruit and pay advertising, retail and administrative staff before they had even established themselves as directly operational overseas, earnings were competitive. Moreover, the nature of the pay was hinged on risk and reward – an operational practice that was of a more commercial nature than charity at the time.⁴⁷ The results of this appointment and the concerted effort of the Committee as a whole to increase publicity and donations were, by 1949, ‘encouraging’ according to Jackson-Cole and Swain, as ‘nearly £51,000 in cash and kind (mostly clothing) had been received since October 1948, and there was a growing band of voluntary helpers’.⁴⁸

Raymond Andrews later recalled that ‘Jackson-Cole was always happiest out beyond the frontier with the pioneers’.⁴⁹ Central to Jackson-Cole’s charity ‘build up’ process was the Voluntary and Christian Service group (V.C.S.) founded by Jackson-Cole in 1953 and originally called the Voluntary and Christian Causes group. Initially established as an informal committee, the V.C.S. went on to become the primary locus of knowledge production and action for the charity business network outlined above.⁵⁰ As a fundraising and grant giving body the V.C.S. supported Oxfam, Toc H, Help the Aged appeals (which then led to the formalization of the organization) and Age Concern; it assisted in the development of a housing association;⁵¹ contributed to the foundation of ActionAid; undertook activities for the United Nations and supported many other smaller projects throughout the world.⁵² Moreover, it was funded through the profits of Andrews and Partners and shared an office with the business in London.⁵³ Regular members of its trustee board and various committees included: Quaker Raymond Andrews of Andrews and Partners and Oxfam; Leslie Swain, an Anglican and manager from Andrews and Partners and Oxfam; Leslie Kirkley, a Quaker and later director of Oxfam; Harold Sumption, Quaker and advertising executive responsible for some of the most successful fundraising campaigns of Oxfam, Help the Aged and ActionAid; Hugh and Anne Faulkner, Quakers and – respectively – honorary secretary and director of press and public relations for Help the Aged, among others.

The V.C.S. had six main principles. First, to relieve human suffering in line with the Christian injunctions to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and heal the sick. Second, it sought to act as a catalyst for new ventures that other charities might be able to build upon. Third, the organization sought to ‘use entrepreneurial skills in a business-like way to help worthwhile causes’. Fourth, it aimed to involve ‘business-like’ people ‘whatever their religious persuasion’ and give them a vocation. The fifth principle was to ensure a focus on unpopular causes. And the sixth was to ‘stay different, to experiment, to test, to keep innovating, to maintain momentum, and continually to challenge the accepted limits of ordinary achievement’.⁵⁴ It sprang into fundraising action primarily when the charities it was associated with did not have the capacity or resources to run local appeals.⁵⁵ In 1960 Jackson-Cole wrote:

V.C.C. [V.C.S.] has been able to generate or re-generate certain vital causes by the somewhat novel way in which it works. It sees an opportunity – usually something which the Charity concerned is either not able itself to do or which, for lack of knowledge, it cannot see could be done successfully. It is often – but not always – advisable in my view that we leave it to ‘them’ once we have done this. Often we should only wish to ‘retire’ when satisfied ‘they’ can really continue successfully.⁵⁶

What is explicit in this statement is V.C.S.’s framing of its entrepreneurial acumen: knowing how charity appeals are best undertaken, what risks are required, and that these methods can, and should, be institutionalized by the charities after the V.C.S. shows ‘them’ how it may be done. Techniques Jackson-Cole favoured included off-the-page appeal advertising in newspapers (directly addressing the reader to respond), which he and colleagues such as Harold Sumption believed was particularly successful in the case of Oxfam and so later used to kick-start Help the Aged and ActionAid. Jackson-Cole also hired salaried fundraisers, believing there to be no return for a charity without initial investment in human resources. He took these techniques to India with HelpAge India, training some of the country’s first salaried, professional fundraisers in the early 1970s.⁵⁷ The clear intent in this work was impact beyond the material: ‘It [the work of V.C.S.] is more than money raising, important though this is. It is a campaign to influence national and world opinion more fully’.⁵⁸ The sense stated here of a need to shape public opinion through business expertise and philanthropic efforts was not a new one. Common features of philanthropy over the last two centuries have been the formation of pressure-groups to influence issues at a national level and the utilization of business resources and expertise through foundations and organized charity to do this more effectively.⁵⁹ According to Frank Prochaska, in the Victorian era this was rooted in a desire to ‘extend the blessings of an idealized home life into the wider community’, and was inspired by evangelical doctrine.⁶⁰ Such individual and family values retained relevance to organized charity throughout the twentieth century, but in post-war Britain these were set against a backdrop of an expanding state welfare system. For some this system held the promise of meeting the welfare needs of the wider population, potentially rendering charity institutions redundant.⁶¹ However many, including Jackson-Cole, remained cynical of the welfare state’s overall effectiveness. In 1977 he wrote that government welfare had arisen ‘first through individual efforts in voluntary charity’, but ‘that governments, when they had taken such things over, had not usually done them with the same compassion or efficiency as would have been the case had the work remained with charities’.⁶²

For Jackson-Cole, much like the business philanthropists of the Victorian era, his view of compassion and efficiency was shaped by a Christian ethic, business expertise, and a belief that entrepreneurial abilities could contribute to God’s work on earth as he perceived it.⁶³ In his personal papers he frequently refers to ‘the Cause’, and this somewhat singular, transcendent humanitarian endeavour is what drives much of his charity work. It has biblical sentiments, as Jackson-Cole frequently refers to the need to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and heal the sick referencing the Bible’s passages in Matthew XXV:34–46.⁶⁴ But it was also organizational, namely, a national mission to rally around – invoking similarities with ascetic Protestantism, which gives worldly activity, such as seeking a profit through enterprise, a religious character.⁶⁵

In much of his writings, Jackson-Cole observed that many charities are all working for that same purpose of feeding, clothing and healing and that ‘if reorganised as a Cause it will more rapidly succeed, and in succeeding it will show that good influence has been at work beyond what man could have obtained himself’.⁶⁶ This article will now turn to briefly examine the details of Jackson-Cole’s personal faith before reflecting on the extent to which these values were imbued in some of the organizations he founded.

Looking back at his youth, religious worship within an institution was largely absent as Jackson-Cole noted that his mother never required that he attend a Sunday school or any other place of ‘official’ worship.⁶⁷ Such institutional detachment continued into his adulthood, as Jackson-Cole attended the Sunday Service of whichever Protestant denomination he felt an inclination towards on the day and was, reportedly, unmoved by the sermons in these churches.⁶⁸ Yet, faith and religiosity were an inherent part of his upbringing. Writing several decades later, Jackson-Cole noted that, ‘The fact that full religious faith eventually came to me must have been due to my mother having faced me in the right direction when I was an infant for she was a very Godly woman’.⁶⁹ Such a familial foundation in spiritual matters is not unusual, as women have traditionally been the key conduits of belief, particularly in working-class families.⁷⁰ It was not until her death in 1926, however, that Jackson-Cole discovered the full strength of his religious conviction.

Jackson-Cole suffered a period of severe illness affecting his digestive system after his mother died, an illness that he attributed to feelings of grief and self-pity. He described himself as ‘completely debilitated’ and unable to pursue any business interests. At the age of twenty-eight, during his recovery, Jackson-Cole lent a part of his offices to a Bible study class and he began to attend himself. At this time, and while reading the book How to Live the Victorious Life by the self-styled author ‘An Unknown Christian’, Jackson-Cole remarked that he had his first religious experience. He recalled that one night he felt an overwhelming urge to get on his knees, and while in this position he experienced his first vision: ‘a light the size of a grapefruit and in the upper half of this circle was a cross’.⁷¹

This overwhelming sense of spirituality returned in strength in 1932 when Jackson-Cole suffered a second period of serious illness, where he was bedridden for almost three years. Jackson-Cole later reflected that this period of illness left him ‘with an immense amount of time for meditation both on religious matters and on life and on the problems of the world’ and that this meditation enabled him to ‘“pick up” from beyond’.⁷² Many scholars have noted that religious and existential beliefs commonly assist as personal coping and survival mechanisms in times of chronic illness for sufferers.⁷³ Moreover, Jackson-Cole was not unique in his experiences of spiritual (re)invigoration, as the growth in Spiritualism that followed the First World War continued through the interwar years. It was not simply a reaction to the exceptional circumstances of mass bereavement caused by war. Rather, ‘congregations were attracted to Spiritualism because of the evidence it provided for survival and because of the consolation and guidance it offered to the bereaved’ or suffering.⁷⁴

Crucially, Jackson-Cole’s first bout of debilitating illness had provided an informal identity-framing vehicle for the second. Comprehending the death of his mother and alleviating the guilt he felt about the previous hardships in her life was eased through two revelations: first, the revelation by his mother on her death bed that her life was no real hardship as she felt blessed to have children that were ‘angels from heaven’, and second, through the comfort he found in religious meditation and Bible study classes during his recovery period.⁷⁵ These spiritual associations provided meaning to Jackson-Cole for two very human experiences: the suffering – and later death – of his mother, as well as his own personal suffering through illness. As such, Jackson-Cole’s operative faith was, from the death of his mother, framed by suffering and the search for alleviation. Such sentiment informed his self-given imperative to ‘help others’ in any way that he was able and contributed to the transformation of his business empire into a philanthropic income stream for several charity organizations.

The projection of personal suffering onto the needs of others is not unusual in situations of bereavement and distress. In an analysis of bereavement and faith, Raymond Schmitt noted that a variant of mourning is the development of a concern for caring for ‘vicarious figures’. In this form, Schmitt explained, there is a repression or denial of one’s own grief at loss – partly the result of an unconscious anger at God for a sense of abandonment – and this is projected onto others perceived by the individual as suffering and wronged, such as the poor and underfed.⁷⁶ While it seems that Jackson-Cole embraced spirituality at a time of suffering, rather than reacting against God out of a sense of abandonment, it accords that ‘projective identification’ with others who were suffering could certainly have been a form of personal defence from the pain of his loss.⁷⁷ Eugene Long argued that the faithful have always maintained that God, in redemptive action, reacts to real suffering, absorbs it and transforms it on a perceived transcendent plain.⁷⁸ It is an understanding or experience of this transcendent transformation that sufferers seek when praying or hoping for grace, and it is in this search for purpose that an individual can strengthen a belief system.

Long further posited that observing the suffering of others is a form of personal hardship in itself, and God’s example calls for the faithful to react to that suffering and pain: ‘to suffer with others, to love, and to freely be involved in relieving suffering and changing those conditions that bring about suffering where they can’.⁷⁹ Giving oneself in the face of the suffering of others is an action that seeks the ‘being’ of future possibility – the transcendent self that at once brings an individual closer to God and gives ongoing purpose to a life (framed by perceived or observed adversity). For Jackson-Cole, the suffering of his mother and his own pain at her loss were pivotal moments in a strengthened spirituality. His personal documents suggest a conscious questioning of ‘being’ and a search for transcendent explanation during his later bout of illness.⁸⁰ Furthermore it would seem that ‘care of vicarious figures’ not only became a coping mechanism for dealing with the loss and the pain, but that it was part of a larger framework of understanding purpose: both the purpose of suffering in general, and Jackson-Cole’s own purpose for ‘being’.

Jackson-Cole acted on this evolving sense of purpose through the formation of professional charities, which itself was not novel. Over the past few centuries a key expression of religious faith has been through humanitarian action and attempts to ease the conditions of those suffering. Throughout the nineteenth century, the vast majority of British charity organizations were established by individuals with strong faith-based convictions to help the needy. Thomas Barnardo, founder of Barnardo’s, for example, was an evangelical Protestant convert and missionary who – upon seeing the suffering of street children in London – established a school and boarding homes for destitute boys and girls. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army in 1865, was a Methodist preacher who undertook social work and humanitarian relief alongside preaching salvation. The formation of Oxfam, too, was undertaken by a range of individuals with different beliefs, particularly Quakerism.

In the early Famine Relief community, one of the key figures behind the formation of the Oxford Committee was an Anglican cleric, Canon Milford, who hosted the initial meeting that led to the formation of Oxfam at his church, St. Mary’s of Oxford University. As is well known, the group also had a strong Quaker influence, with the early involvement of Raymond Andrews and the later appointment of Harold Sumption to advertise for the Committee in 1948 and Leslie Kirkley as the director in 1951, among others. For the Quaker members, their ethos was pacifist and humanitarian, and their approach was reformist, with a desire to advance the causes of peace and justice throughout the world.⁸¹ Such faith-inspired social action has a long history, with Quakers being prominent in the abolitionist movement and the 1847 famine in Ireland, and their approach has always aimed to be both non-sectarian and non-proselytizing.⁸² While Jackson-Cole ultimately identified with the Anglican Church, the Quaker ethos retained a strong influence on him, especially during his time in Oxford.⁸³ He shared a pacifist stance and their zeal for faith-inspired social change. He also took inspiration from the faith and work of other Oxford Committee colleagues, which resulted in an understanding of Oxfam as divinely supported. In his memoir notes, Jackson-Cole recalled:

Canon Milford’s position as the Vicar of the University Church was the means of opening many doors for me with his introductions. There were a number who believed that Oxfam was being helped from beyond but I did not even consider this until Gilbert Murray, who was an agnostic at that time, told me of his conviction that ‘there is a responsible spirit behind the Universe seeking to remedy the suffering.’ I myself believe that Gilbert Murray and many other of Oxfam’s sincere supporters who have departed this life are praying from Beyond for the cause of the hungry and distressed in this world.⁸⁴

For Jackson-Cole this humanitarian religiosity was simultaneously influenced by his awareness of the wide-scale suffering brought on by war, past personal experiences of suffering, and an entrepreneurial spirit. The Oxford Committee offered an ideal organizational position within which he could explore and perform ‘the care of vicarious others’ imperative and look towards wider social impact. This sentiment was particularly marked in a personal document of Jackson-Cole’s in which he notes the chronology of his religious experiences:

Organized charity became vital for supporting Jackson-Cole’s individual beliefs and providing a proactive means to engage with suffering, as well as offering a faith community attachment that strengthened these shared values. What is more, Jackson-Cole’s dedication to the Christian charity community through the formation of cause-based organizations can be seen throughout his lifetime through the foundation of, among others: the Voluntary and Christian Service, Help the Aged, ActionAid, the Phyllis Trust, the Christian Book Promotion Trust (C.B.P.T.) and the Christian Initiative Trust (C.I.T.), as well as in the recruitment ‘of actively committed Christians’ for his commercial businesses.⁸⁶ A document pertaining to the purpose of the C.B.P.T. from 1970 provides insight into the fluidity Jackson-Cole saw between the organized humanitarian aspects of his work, and the Christian belief-system that underpinned his actions:

1. So far our Trustees in other capacities have worked under the Christian injunctions to relieve great material needs such as a) hunger, b) lack of clothing and c) lack of shelter (housing).

2. This new Trust helps to deal with other great needs (not of a material nature) such as a) relieving the fear of death, b) relieving the distress of bereaved persons, c) relieving distress arising from lack of faith and of purpose, d) helping with certain other distresses, e) bringing people (including children) to CHRIST.⁸⁷

What is hinted at within this document is that the work of the trustees of the humanitarian organizations working to relieve material need (Oxfam and Help the Aged, for example) and the work of the evangelical organizations focused on spiritual relief (the C.B.P.T. and C.I.T.) were part of the same bigger mission. Moreover, it is clear that the alleviation of suffering ran as an imperative through the heart of all of Jackson-Cole’s institutions, and that the foundational ethic of all of his work was one of Christian charity. This encompassing Christian-ethical underpinning is further supported by the fact that the Phyllis Trust, the C.B.P.T. and the C.I.T. made up 100 per cent of the shareholding of the Andrews and Partners estate agency business – as they do today under their more recent names the Andrews Charitable Trust and Speaking Volumes.⁸⁸ These connections paint a complex organizational picture of Christian Trusts supporting a commercial business, which in turn supported (largely ‘secular’) charities.

Jackson-Cole’s expanding group of Christian-inspired organizations from the 1940s to the 1970s was part of larger network of charities that explicitly or implicitly had faith drivers. Their growth counters a prevailing argument that Christian influence was on the decline in key areas of public British life, particularly from the late 1950s.⁸⁹ As Matthew Anderson has pointed out, Christian development agencies actually expanded in that decade, with the formation of: Christian Aid, which emerged out of an inter-Church appeal in 1957; the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development (C.A.F.O.D.), which emerged from a ‘Family Fast Day’ appeal in 1961; and Tear Fund (The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund), which emerged in World Refugee Year 1959–60.⁹⁰ These agencies, Anderson argued, worked to ‘re-establish the relevance of Christian values within modern society’,⁹¹ and though their causes (such as Fair Trade) were not explicitly religious, they were sustained by people of faith.⁹²

This public/private divide in religiosity, where faith may be what (privately) motivates an individual’s work but may not necessarily define the content and purpose of a particular (public) action, came to characterize British life from the 1960s. Hugh McLeod commented that there was a growing sense in this ‘long’ decade that there ‘ought to be a sphere of private behaviour within which the individual should be guided only by conscience’, and where the law or public judgement ought not to intervene.⁹³ And on the flip side, it was increasingly felt that personal moral systems ought not to define the limits of public action and commentary. Thus, the 1960s saw the breaking of many taboos in public with, for example, open discussions on sexuality and critiques or satires of faith institutions.⁹⁴ There was also a recognition from the 1960s that confessional subcultures might actually alienate individuals, groups and potential supporters, and so there were moves by many institutions to broaden their appeal.⁹⁵ For example, in the late 1980s the founder of Tradecraft, a U.K.-based Fair Trade organization, noted that he was ‘conscious of how “Christian language” might alienate people’ and so the organization avoided an overtly Christian approach, despite 85 per cent of its staff identifying with that faith.⁹⁶ Roger Lees, first Chairman of ActionAid and a board member of V.C.S., recalled that ActionAid, too, went through a similar reckoning.

ActionAid began life as the Christian Youth Appeal, a campaign started by Cecil Jackson-Cole in 1969. The Christian Youth Appeal had three main aims: medical aid overseas; sponsorship of orphaned children; and the rehabilitation of drug addicts.⁹⁷ Yet over the course of a decade the organization had changed names twice – to Action in Distress and then ActionAid – and had narrowed its causes from three to one: the sponsorship of children. It continued to be staffed primarily by individuals who identified their faith as Christian. As Lees recollected: ‘still very late on when we put adverts out for new staff … we still said “Christian or public spirited people” ... It was a factor in the people we employed’.⁹⁸ Nonetheless, the public mandate of the organization shifted.

Lees recalled that the Christian Youth Appeal had not been as successful in early fundraising efforts as its sister appeal for Help the Aged, and that they had to re-think their strategy in order to augment material support.⁹⁹ He said of its parent charity, the Voluntary and Christian Service, ‘that it [the Christian name of the organization] stopped their fundraising base because if you had that [name] on the bottom of your letterhead a lot of people who were anti-Christian wouldn’t give to you’. In a private letter to Jackson-Cole in 1971, Lees stated that the charity must re-evaluate use of the word ‘Christian’ in their name:

In my own case and also that of the Committee I would like to see the word Christian retained. However … this could be achieved by using as our slogan for example ‘Action in Distress’ and highlighting that we were part of V.C.S … We could thus be stressing the object and needs of the appeal and we could be the youthful arm of V.C.S. meeting those needs primarily by the efforts of young people.¹⁰⁰

In an interview, Lees also noted that a problem with the Christian Youth Appeal was the ambiguity over its purpose given the name and the diversity of causes it was supporting – was it an organization to support Christian youth, an organization run by Christian youths, or did you have to be Christian to support it or receive help? These concerns, along with the reluctance of some donors to give money for drug addiction rehabilitation, also led to rebranding and a narrowing of focus.¹⁰¹ From 1972 the organization specialized in child sponsorship, particularly with children in India and Kenya, and – with advertising expertise from colleagues including Harold Sumption (Quaker and long-time collaborator with Jackson-Cole across all his major V.C.S. projects) – the charity advanced its marketing. According to the recollections of Action in Distress’s first general secretary, the charity’s early successes were in ‘case history’ advertising in the ‘Give a Child a Chance’ campaign of the early 1970s, and in personalizing sponsorships:

I worked out a headline and a case history of a child … the headline was: ‘Give a Child a Chance at Christmas’ … and the agency which was chaired by Harold Sumption said this is too long, you have to say ‘Give a Child A Chance’ and everybody knows it’s Christmas … [I]t went in the Observer and the results were stunning. We were getting, for a one pound investment, a return in the region of forty to fifty pounds, and we had more people wanting to sponsor children, than we had children available. So we had the crazy situation that [colleagues were] sent to India to find more children, photograph them and come back very quickly, so that we could give sponsors their sponsored child.

The private/public divide between personal faith and secular organizational identity expressed earlier by Lees resonated with wider shifts across business. David Jeremy, whose book examined Christians in business leadership from 1900–60, argued that post-war business leaders ‘of strong Christian convictions’ did not see the world of business ‘as a sphere for the application of Christian ethics. For them work was an area where individual colleagues might be influenced but organizational structures and modes of operation much less, if at all’.¹⁰² This separation continued until the 1980s, when initiatives such as the Faith at Work movement reignited popular support for the relevance of religious teachings to the workplace.¹⁰³

As touched upon by Lees above, a key driver in this separation of faith and organization for both businesses and charity organizations was market competition. With the expansion of charities in the post-war economic boom, and a related increase in competition for funding from private and institutional donors, charity managers had to make assumptions about their donors and decisions about their branding, such as whether using the word ‘Christian’ (or ‘drug addict’) would decrease fundraising potential.¹⁰⁴ While Stephen Hopgood and Leslie Vinjamuri credited these organizational shifts primarily to external market pressure,¹⁰⁵ Jackson-Cole and his colleagues’ charity business approach suggests a more complex interweaving of personal values and views on what makes a successful charity enterprise. Indeed, in Jackson-Cole’s mind, there was no distinction between fundraising as an activity, and faith as a motivator – money raised was a manifestation of God’s influence and worked towards ‘the Cause’.

This view resonated with the approach of many conservative Christian executives to corporate business in the United States from the mid twentieth century. These predominantly evangelical executives ‘viewed business as a religious arena and endeavour’ and sought to transform American society through a religious revolution in private enterprise. It was part of a ‘new way’ of being Christian and advancing the gospel.¹⁰⁶ And the influence of this business-minded conservative Christianity on American markets, society and politics was significant. It raised billions of dollars for the capitalist economy and broadened its appeal through emphasizing ecumenical and pragmatic attitudes towards modernization, while retaining a level of parochialism. Darren Grem refered to this conservative religious business movement as paradoxically insular and diffuse, as well as somewhat limited – ‘insular’ in that these evangelicals experienced and practiced faith in private settings, especially in privately-owned business; ‘diffuse’ because those settings and businesses were spread across the country; and ‘limited’ because there were many areas of public life not affected by their activities.¹⁰⁷ While the U.K. corporate sector, and public life in general, took a much more secular path than the U.S. over the twentieth century, the central development – exploring and expanding what it means to be ‘religious’ – remains relevant. Jackson-Cole in some notes in advance of a meeting in 1971 wrote that:

We can point to the Agencies like Oxfam (nearly all under Christian inspiration) who have in a small way helped the colossal need, but more still formed public opinion and began to mould many Governments to some action … As many as possible need to realise that the urge is coming from Beyond and that we can be used as much on this side of Christ’s mission as those who ‘preach the word’. The difference is that in this period of man’s populations, we have to apply the techniques of large scale organization while still retaining the Spirit … [charities] should in fact obey some of the top business principles.¹⁰⁸

Here Jackson-Cole frames the organization of charity and business as crucial venues for articulating faith and what it means to advance the Christian mission. And while the extent to which this personal Christian mission permeated into broader areas of organized charity, business and public life may well be contestable, the impact of his organizations’ fundraising technologies on public engagement with humanitarian causes has certainly not been insignificant. For example, although selling second-hand items for charity has a long history,¹⁰⁹ Oxfam’s Broad Street shop is widely credited with kick-starting modern charity retail, which can be characterized by its focus on maximizing fundraising and using business techniques to develop and manage stores.¹¹⁰ Today Oxfam has more than 650 shops operating on the U.K.’s high streets, run by more than 23,000 volunteers and salaried staff, and there are over 10,500 more shops operated by various other charity organizations across the country.¹¹¹

For Action in Distress/ActionAid too, individual child sponsorship predates the charity’s ‘case histories’ of the 1970s, as the Save the Children Fund was connecting donors with needy children from 1919.¹¹² Nonetheless Jackson-Cole’s charity, with the marketing expertise of Howard Sumption, trialled what turned out to be some incredibly successful fundraising techniques, including the mass marketing of a ‘postal parent’ campaign – which beseeched donors to be a ‘postal parent’ for a monthly subscription.¹¹³ This was done through off-the-page advertising and loose leaf inserts, and the campaign is credited with making ActionAid one of the fastest growing charities of the late 1970s/early 1980s.¹¹⁴

The extent to which these business-informed charity fundraising initiatives were (and continue to be) secular has been hotly debated. There has been a rise in calls from within the Christian scholarly community to reclaim faith-inspired giving from so-called secular fundraising activities, asserting that giving practices have moved too far away from their Christian stewardship origins.¹¹⁵ Humanitarian scholars have pointed out that nearly all of the growth in the voluntary sector between 1945 and the 1980s was in secular agencies,¹¹⁶ counting Oxfam, ActionAid and Help the Aged within that category. However, the faith inspiration and religious values that sit behind Jackson-Cole’s organizations, and the charity efforts of the dozens of other managers and leaders that worked beside him, suggest a more complex picture. They demonstrate the continued relevance of faith to social action in Britain across the mid to late twentieth century, and challenge assumptions around what constitutes secularity in the business of charity.

In many ways, the role of faith in the professionalization of these charities in the U.K. mirrors Grem’s picture of the influence of evangelicalism on twentieth-century corporate America: insular, diffuse and limited.¹¹⁷ The faith of Jackson-Cole and his associates was largely experienced in private settings, including charities and business, with fundraising perceived as a Christian act and responsibility. These fundraising initiatives were diffuse in the sense that they occurred across the country, though were not necessarily engaged with as Christian-inspired initiatives by everyday private donors. While Jackson-Cole may have aspired for a social and religious revolution through work for ‘the Cause’, many areas of public life remained unaffected by these sentiments and actions. However, the professional tools and techniques developed within his organizations and appeals achieved significant material success and accelerated the momentum of charity professionalization that was happening across the country. And, for Jackson-Cole at least, that was evidence of God’s work on earth.

It is important, when writing about the work of a founder, not to fall into ‘Great Man’ narratives about their achievements and legacy. Jackson-Cole’s appeals and organizations certainly grew legs with his efforts, but their genesis was often in conversation with other colleagues and friends about an emerging humanitarian need. And the charities and businesses he is credited with founding were transformed into lasting enterprises largely because of the additional work and inputs of a range of other men and women who worked and volunteered for them. Some of them have been briefly mentioned above – Raymond Andrews, Leslie Swain, Harold Sumption, Roger Lees, Hugh and Anne Faulkner – though many more merit attention. Moreover, Jackson-Cole was not universally admired. For every colleague that had a good working relationship with him, there was another who found him to be, at best, eccentric with odd working habits (such as making unsolicited late night work phone calls and sleeping in until mid morning) or, at worst, bad tempered, domineering, and prone to outbursts that created ‘a culture of fear’ in his organizations.¹¹⁸

Nonetheless, through the network of charities, businesses, and fundraising initiatives linked to Andrews and Partners and the V.C.S., Jackson-Cole unarguably contributed to the advancement of professional charity in enduring ways. And his charity business practices offer a useful departure point for exploring the changing landscape of twentieth-century charitable Britain. Building on literature that has examined the professionalization of charity after the Second World War,¹¹⁹ this article has provided additional insights into how business methods came to influence some of the U.K.’s largest charities. This was through the secondment of corporate staff to charities, hiring salaried fundraisers, incubating appeals through V.C.S. and Andrews and Partners, through innovations in advertising, fluid committee membership between charities, trusts and businesses, and so on.

These examples contribute to ongoing challenges of the foundational myths of many twentieth-century charities, which tend to emphasize good intentions, inexperience and voluntarism as key underpinnings, and submerge events or individuals that do not fit with their self-imagined identity.¹²⁰ ActionAid in particular has suffered from a somewhat revised account of its inception, with narratives of its foundation erroneously beginning in 1972 as a secular child sponsorship organization¹²¹ rather than a Christian-inspired youth organization that trialled fundraising for various causes before narrowing to child-focused appeals.

Relatedly, a deeper look into Jackson-Cole’s personal motivations sheds further light on the enduring relationship between faith, charity and business in post-war Britain. While the fundraising technologies developed by Oxfam, the V.C.S. and others were not obviously religious in their content – even moving away from overt Christian associations when donations were adversely affected by it – faith remained a motivator and, at times, an explanation of success. In one chapter of an uncompleted autobiographical piece, Jackson-Cole describes the comfort he feels in the knowledge that everyone and their life’s work is ‘known beyond’, and that those who live a life dedicated to helping others may not be ‘required to pass on’ before their time.¹²² In another document, Jackson-Cole describes his life’s work, particularly Help the Aged, and the wider humanitarian endeavour as a ‘Cause’ influenced by, and evidence of, the work of God.¹²³ While a prevailing thread of historical research posits the 1950s and 1960s as a time of increasing secularism and declining Christianity,¹²⁴ this analysis, like Anderson’s work on the Fair Trade movement, weaves more readily into the counter-historiography of scholars such as Jeremy Morris who call for an examination of personal religious experience as a means to understand religiosity in Britain in the period.¹²⁵

When Jackson-Cole passed away in 1979 it was arguably towards the end of a period of charity and workplace secularism, as the 1980s in the U.S. saw a generation take power in the corporate and political sphere who sought more meaning and purpose in their work and formed part of a reinvigorated Faith at Work movement.¹²⁶ In the U.K. and elsewhere, the 1990s saw a significant surge in charity organizations that publicly identified as faith-based while undertaking similar fundraising approaches pioneered by their predecessors.¹²⁷ However, what Jackson-Cole’s personal mission and his network’s charity business initiatives show is that this timeline was not one of an absolute shift. While the decline of institutional Christianity across the twentieth century is certainly widely accepted, that does not necessarily mean that so-called ‘earthly matters’¹²⁸ such as fundraising and professionalization had no religious character for those shaping them. Through the work of Jackson-Cole and his colleagues to ‘build up’ Oxfam, the V.C.S. and ActionAid, it is possible to see an enduring and symbiotic relationship between faith, charity and business throughout the mid to late twentieth century and this has quite profound implications for the way we understand professionalizing fundraising initiatives in this period.

Footnotes