People
Jack Croxford
1897-1969
Related Venues:
Jack was born in December 1897 in Bethnel Green.
In 1906, aged 9, he received an award from school for ‘general proficiency’ a copy of a book called ‘Sunshine and Snow’, which is ‘an engaging adventure novel set in the rugged Canadian wilderness.’
Later, he was living on the Frensham Heights estate, owned by the Charrington family, of the local Charrington Co Ltd brewery), where his father was Head Gardener.
At 13, Jack came across a newspaper advert: “Wanted – A lad for farm in Western Canada. Must be able to Ride, Drive and Milk”. He was besotted with the idea. He got some money together to take a train to London to meet the agent who’d placed the advert, and was disappointed that he couldn’t be sent abroad without finishing school and getting his parents’ permission. The journey back took a full day, on a series of horse-drawn buses.
The next year, he passed the Labour Examination, to secure an early release from school (to prove he was ready for work, aged 14). The next months were spent learning ploughing, milking, horseriding and being a golf caddy and he also learned to box.
Another trip to London resulted in formally signing up for the next work opportunity. In April 1912, the letter came and Jack was on the boat, with all his belongings in a tin trunk. After a rough 10 days at sea, he arrived in Montreal, and took a five day train journey to Dubuc, Saskatchewan (population 200); so remote that there was no train station – he had to jump down from the train.
At the start of WW1, he joined the Canadian cavalry, and was involved in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and was part of the Canadian Corps which recaptured Passchendale in 1917.
Returning from the war, Jack started a window cleaning business, and while working on an expensive property in London, put his arm through a window pane, the grateful owner gave him £100 to learn a trade in gratitude for not bleeding on his expensive carpet.
He chose electricity. He got a job with Strand Electric, and worked alongside Stanley Earnshaw, Jack Madre and Lew Burroughs.
He then got a job as electrician at the Covent Garden Opera House, eventually becoming Chief Electrician for 21 years, responsible for the largest theatre lighting installation at the time, and created the lighting for the last pantomime at the Opera House, Red Riding Hood in 1938/39.
He also was seconded to light the 1938 Ideal Home Exhibition in Olympia.
In 1939, the Opera House was in bad financial shape. Jacks’ team offered to man searchlights on the roof to aid spotting enemy planes. A lease was sold to Mecca Dancing to use the building as a dance hall giving war ravaged Londoners somewhere to go. Jack became Chief Engineer working for Mecca Dancing.
Mecca offered £100 to anyone who could come up with a way of removing chewing gum from the carpets, and Jack invented an electrically heated scraper which solved the problem elegantly.
After the war, the dance hall was moved to the Lyceum Theatre, creating the Lyceum Ballroom and Jack decided to recycle Morrison air raid shelters to provide a strong wooden frame on which to build the dance floor.
The Lyceum Ballroom was in operation until 1985 when it became a theatre again for the National Theatres’ production of The Mysteries (transferred from the Cottesloe).
Age 59, Jack fell out with Eric Morley and left Mecca to run the electrical installation for the Jaywick holiday park. Aged 70, he decided to move back to Canada for a year, to gain his pension from the Canadian military, on his return to the UK Jack was taken ill, and died in 1969.
His collection of photos and documents can be viewed on the Backstage Heritage Collection.