Daglish boxers of Workington

I recently stumbled upon an excellent web site abour Pre-War Boxing, run by boxing historian Miles Templeton. The site included details of two Daglishes who were boxing in Workington in the mid 1930s -Harry and Jim Daglish. From the site I obtained scans of two handbills from 1934.

The first is for Harry Daglish (born Henry Daglish, born 1917, died 1977). The fight to which the handbill refers took place on Monday November 12, 1934 at Drill Hall Carlisle. Harry beat his opponent Frank Moran on points.

At this time Harry would have been 17 years old. Miles tells me that he would be fighting for prizes of around 10 or 15 shillings, money that would support the family budget.

Harry was a member of Jim Pattinson’s Boxing Club and fought all over the North of England, from Workington to Manchester and across to the North East.

He carried on boxing until he was called up into the Navy during WW2. In the Navy he kept quiet about his boxing skills – but his daughter Linda tells a story:

“There was one fellow used to win bouts most of the time and he got rather too big for his boots - so Dad decided to bring him down a peg or two. Harry told his mate to put all the money he could scrape together on himself - and then he hammered the other fellow, much to everyone’s surprise! They all lost their money, except Dad’s mate - and of course the other fellow wasn't quite so big for his boots after that.”

Harry is part of the Daglish family which has been involved for many years with Workington’s famous Uppies & Downies held each year over the Easter period.

The other handbill is for Jim Daglish – and this is proving something of a puzzle, as no-one knows who this is! The fight appears to be a challenge match, as the handbill reads:

Daglish has asked for this contest, confident he will check Nugent’s series of victories. Will he?

Unfortunately we don’t know the result of the match!

My thanks to Miles Templeton for the handbills and to Linda Carter for the photo and family details.