Jerry Cornes
| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Men's athletics | ||
Representing  Great Britain
|
||
| Olympic Games | ||
 |
1932 Los Angeles | 1500 metres |
| British Empire Games | ||
Representing  England
|
||
 |
1930 Hamilton | 1 mile |
|
1934 London | 1 mile |
John Frederick "Jerry" Cornes (23 March 1910 – 19 June 2001) was an English middle distance runner, colonial officer, and schoolmaster.
He was born in Darjeeling, British India.
The son of a judge in the Indian Civil Service, Cornes was educated at Clifton College and won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he read History. He stayed at Oxford for an extra year, studying one of the languages of Nigeria and learning how to work in the colonies. He left Oxford in 1932, when he competed in the Olympics at Los Angeles.
After the 1932 Olympic Games, Cornes was posted to Nigeria as a civil servant. He stayed there for five years, during which time he was given leave to attend the 1936 Games in Berlin. He only decided to go for the '36 Olympics a year before, so he did no intensive training in between, but during that time he raced a local Nigerian around the walls of Katsima and lost.
In 1937, Cornes returned from Nigeria and on 12 June he married Rachael Addis in Frant, Sussex. Their marriage was extremely happy. In 1997, they celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary.
Also in 1937, he went to work for the civil service in Palestine, as assistant district officer of Ramallah, in Judea. He also worked in Hebron and Safad. His three elder sons, Nick, Colin and John were born in Palestine. He was working at the King David Hotel at the time of the King David Hotel bombing. He was curious when he heard a small explosive blast in the street outside the hotel, which had been set off by terrorists to keep passers-by away from the area. He went outside to investigate, and while he was outside a bomb inside the hotel was detonated, killing everyone on his floor.
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