BOXING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 112, 13 May 1929, Page 8

BOXING

FAMOUS PROMOTER DIES BEGAN AT WONDERLAND GREAT WORK FOR FISTIC GAME The death was recently announced of- Mr Harry Jacobs, London’s leading promoter. ! His connectoin with sport (says 1 Sporting Life) began at the old Wonderland in Whitechapel, and under his regime there some of the greatest boxers of their day .were discovered and developed. One can truly say that almost every boxer of any note boxed at the o!4 Wonderland, which, by the way, was burned down on August 13, 1911 —the date of the death of Tom Thomas, the British middle-weight champion and the first holder of the Lonsdale Belt for the weight. Thomas was only one of the many champions who boxed for Mr Jacobs. Tommy Burns, world’s heavyweight title holder, Gunner Moir, Harry Ware, Pat O’Keefe, Jim Sullivan, Y’oung Joseph, Harry Reeve, Digger Stanley, Pedlar Palmer, Johnny Summers, Matt Wells, Curly Walker, Ben Jordan, George Dixon, Owen Morgan, Jim Kenrick, Ben Taylor, Cockney Cohen, Slounch Dixon, Jack Goldswain, Andrew Tokell, Peter Brown, Frank Craig, Tiger Smith, Sam Russell, Tommy Ireland, Ted Ware, Seaman Hayes, Young Ahearne, Sid Burns —one could go on adding to the list of famous boxers who were seen frequently at Wonderland in the old days. It is stating only a hare fact to say that British boxing was at its greatest strength in every weight class during JMr Jacobs’s tenure of Wonderland, : and that its decline began w ith the de- ! st ruction of the famous hall. He ‘ made boxing at the Albert Hall an institution, and it will be the determination of those of his family who will carry on there in his name to do so on exactly the same lines.