Jack Warner

Jack Warner, OBE (born Horace John Waters; 24 October 1895 – 24 May 1981) was a British actor. He is closely associated with the role of PC George Dixon, which he played in the 1950 film The Blue Lamp and later in the television series Dixon of Dock Green from 1955 until 1976, but he was also for some years one of Britain's most popular film stars. Early life Warner was born Horace John Waters in Bromley-by-Bow, Poplar, London, the third child of Edward William Waters, master fulling maker and undertaker's warehouseman, and Maud Mary Best. His sisters, Elsie and Doris Waters, were comediennes who usually performed as "Gert and Daisy". Warner attended the Coopers' Company's Grammar School for Boys in Mile End, while his sisters both attended the nearby sister school, Coborn School for Girls in Bow. The three children were choristers at St. Leonard's Church in Bromley-by-Bow, and for a time, Warner was the choir's soloist. After leaving school, he studied automobile engineering at the Northampton Institute (now part of the City University, London) but being more practical than academic he left after a year to work at the repair facilities of F.W. Berwick and Company in Balham, where he started by sweeping the floors for 2d per hour. Frederick William Berwick became a partner in the Anglo-French automobile manufacturing company Sizaire-Berwick and, in August 1913, Warner was sent to work as a mechanic in Paris. He drove completed chassis to the coast from where they were shipped to England, road-testing them en route. He acquired a working knowledge of French which stood him in good stead throughout his life; an imitation of Maurice Chevalier became a part of his repertoire.