Archie Jackson

Archibald Jackson was an Australian international cricketer. He played eight Test matches as a specialist batsman between 1929 and 1931. In 1929, aged 19, he became the youngest player to score a Test century. His Test and first-class career coincided with the early playing years of Don Bradman.

About Archie Jackson in brief

Archibald Jackson was an Australian international cricketer. He played eight Test matches as a specialist batsman between 1929 and 1931. In 1929, aged 19, he became the youngest player to score a Test century. His Test and first-class career coincided with the early playing years of Don Bradman, with whom he was often compared. Jackson’s career was dogged by poor health; illness and his unfamiliarity with local conditions hampered his tour of England, only playing two of the five Test matches. It is speculated that, had he lived, he may have rivalled Bradman as a batsman. Jackson died at the age of just 23 in February 1933. He was the first son and third child of Alexander and Margaret Jackson. His uncle Jimmy and cousins Archie and James were professional footballers in Scotland and England, the latter captaining Liverpool. His father had spent part of his childhood in Australia and returned with his family to settle in Balmain, a suburb of Sydney, in 1913. Jackson joined Balmain District Cricket Club in his mid-teens where he quickly came to the attention of the captain, Test bowler Arthur Mailey. The Labor politician Doc Evatt, a noted benefactor of young cricketers, purchased suitable cricket equipment for him. He made his first grade début for Balmain at 15 years and one month. Jackson left school at this time and worked for a warehouse firm called Jackson & McDonald until the demands of cricket compelled him to resign.

In 1925–26, his second season with Balmain,. Jackson led the grade cricket competition’s batting averages and won selection for the New South Wales Second XI to play Victoria. Jackson began the 1926–27 season with scores of 111 against St George, 198 against Western Suburbs and 106 against Mosman. He scored 86 in the second innings of a match against Queensland at Brisbane and posted a century in the return match against the Queenslanders at the SCG. Jackson was another rising teenage batsman, who made his Test début in the match against South Australia at Adelaide. He died in 1933, aged 23, at a sanatorium in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. He is survived by his wife, two children and a step-grandchild, and two step-greats, Peter and Peter Jackson, who were all born in Sydney. His son, Peter, died in a car crash in Sydney in 2005. He had been playing cricket with a local team when his knee went on a boil and he was forced to withdraw from the match. He later died of a heart attack in a Brisbane hotel room. Jackson is buried in a private ceremony at Balmain in Sydney’s inner-city suburb, near the home of his former cricket club, the Balmain Cricket Club, where he was once a first-grade player. His wife and two children are also buried in Bal main. He also had a son, Donald, who was born in 1925 and played cricket for Bal main in 1926 and 1927.

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