Biddy Bishop

Newspaper Sports Editor, Manager, Promoter

Date of Birth: Circa 1868
Date of Death: 1941-10-21 (heart attack at San Francisco, age 73)

When Biddy Bishop was very young, his older brother called him Billy (after his middle name), rather than George. (Bishop's full name was sometimes reported to be George Washington Bishop, however.) But his younger sister could not pronounce "Billy" and so she called him "Biddy," and that is how he got his nickname. According to the Dec. 21, 1916 Tacoma Daily News.

Bishop later became a well-known and well-respected referee and promoter in the Seattle-Tacoma area, starting in the 1910s. By 1914 he was the Sporting Editor of the Tacoma Daily News. He quit that job in late 1916, after 11 years, to manage Billy Weeks. They both then moved to the Ohio area, where Bishop became a popular promoter and manager.

Per the Dec. 19, 1918 Tacoma News-Tribune, Bishop had moved to Spokane from San Francisco soon after the great 1906 earthquake. While in Spokane he met Jack Kearns. Kearns had been driving a horse team at this time. Bishop and Kearns joined forces to start a newspaper, but the paper folded after only two editions were published. Kearns then moved on to manage Kid Scaler, and then to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he eventually hooked up with Fighting Dick Hyland. From there, Kearns went to San Francisco where he took over the helm of Fighting Billy Murray. They both sailed to Australia, where Kearns had Joe Bonds sent over to fight in his small stable. When Kearns returned to San Francisco, Jack Curley turned over to Kearns management of "an obscure boxer in Salt Lake City"--future world champion and boxing icon Jack Dempsey.

Miscellaneous

• Photo of Bishop in 1890
• Former Sports Editor for the Tacoma, WA, Tacoma News-Tribune newspaper from circa 1906 to 1916, per the Sept. 16, 1916 edition. (By Oct. 4 he was no longer its Sports Editor.)
• Manager of boxers Joe Bonds, Travie Davis, and Billy Weeks, among others
• Umpire with Texas Baseball League (circa ?)
• By April 1917 he had moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he purchased a boxing arena, per the April 29 Everett Tribune (Everett, WA, USA) newspaper. He would soon develop a stable of boxers that included K O Mars and others. (A photograph of Bishop and his Cincinnati stable can be found in the December 13, 1925 Tacoma News Tribune.) On Dec. 8, 1924, he returned to the Pacific Northwest with Mars, Phil Herkert, Sammy Sandow, Jimmy Moore, Irving Goldberg, and Alex Novecky for a series of shows.
• Promoted boxing shows in the late 1920s/early 1930s in Seattle, WA, with Lonnie Austin
• By late 1930 he was promoting shows in Denver, Colorado. Sept. 3 Wenatchee Daily World
• Lonnie Austin bought out Bishop Jan. 8, 1933. Wenatchee Daily World
• By 1933 he owned Biddy Bishop's Rotisserie on Sea-Tac Highway. Feb. 5 Seattle Post-Intelligencer