Historical Discrimination in Boxing
Debate between Peter Bone and Gerald Jones(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
I will call Gerald Jones to move the motion and then I will call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention in 30-minute debates.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered historical discrimination in boxing.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. Keen observers of proceedings in this House will be forgiven for thinking that this is not the first time I have led a debate on historical discrimination in boxing. For those who might not be glued to proceedings in this place, I will recap.
Cuthbert Taylor is a local sporting legend in my constituency of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney. An amateur and then a professional boxer, he had over 500 bouts in a career lasting almost 20 years between 1928 and 1947, many in his native Merthyr Tydfil and across south Wales, but also across the United Kingdom and Europe. He was knocked out only once in his entire career. Justifiably, Cuthbert Taylor was once described as “the best in Europe”.
In 1927 he won the flyweight championship title. He defended the title in 1928, when he also became British amateur flyweight champion. That same year, he represented Great Britain at the Amsterdam summer Olympics, reaching the quarter-final stage in the flyweight category. He was the first black boxer to represent Britain at the Olympics. Although well known by some in his hometown of Merthyr Tydfil, and despite a very successful and exciting career, Cuthbert Taylor never got the same recognition on a national or international stage as other boxers. That was because of one simple thing: the colour of his skin.
Cuthbert Taylor was born in 1909 in Georgetown, Merthyr Tydfil, to parents of different ethnic backgrounds. His father, also named Cuthbert and formerly a notable amateur boxer in Liverpool, was of Caribbean descent. His mother, Margaret, was white Welsh. Cuthbert Taylor was judged at the time to be
“not white enough to be British”
by the British Boxing Board of Control, and he was prevented from ever challenging for a British title or a world title professionally by the body’s colour bar rule.