Previously on the books of several Football League sides, Jack spent his early years living in Liverpool and working as a machine fitter working for a Salford Engineering firm and spent some time travelling to Italy and Canada. He became one of the first professionals engaged by St Mary’s.

A deft and aggressive forward, Jack had the distinction of being the first ever Saint to be sent off when he was over-zealous in a Hampshire Senior Cup-tie against Freemantle in February 1894.

He scored in the club’s inaugural game in the Southern League and was a prominent member of the side until he signed up to crew a yacht that was bound for Hong Kong in November 1896. He returned to Southampton where he married a local girl but then moved to London where it is thought he worked worked on the capital’s Tower Bridge project and played one Southern League game for Fulham in 1899. In 1901 he was in Southwark but a year later, having returned to the Far East there were reports he had died in Canton in 1903 leaving his widow, Charlotte and two daughters back in the UK. They later took up nursing duties in Bournemouth. However (according to Newcastle FC historian Paul Joannou in his book “Newcastle West End: The Complete Record 1882-92) official court documents from 1906 relating to his divorce, raised by Charlotte reveal that her solicitors had traced Jack living in Newcastle and that he was a mechanical engineer. He later married a woman from the Newcastle area, continued to work as an engineer and finally settled in London where he died in 1933.