J Frank Bradley - Obituary 1923

[prewarboxing]

Under a recent thread relating to Jimmy Wilde some of us got into a discussion about the esteemed editor of the Mirror of Life. Some of you may not know this but during the period 1900-24 the Mirror of Life was a weekly newspaper, published in the UK, and specialising primarily in boxing. For the bulk of this period the editor was J Frank Bradley. I said that I would dig out his obituary and post it on here. I have set up this new thread to do so

Miles Templeton.

[prewarboxing]

This is the obituary for him as it appeared in the Mirror of Life on March 31 1923

Miles Templeton

[Senya13]

So far the main author of the write-ups for Famous Fights Past & Present seems to be W. Willmott Dixon ("Thormanby"), the author of multiple historical novels/books. He was previously a co-editor of Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. But I haven't been able to track down an obituary or any mention of his age, to be 100% sure.

[Bladder]

Just had a quick look and i can see that willmott-dixon died towards the end of 1914 and his age is given as 70.

I can't post a screen shot at the moment and haven't found a birth record to confirm his age yet.

[Bladder]

Senya, here are the details for W Willmott-Dixon. Not sure if this makes him the person you are trying to tie down as the main writer for FFP&P as I think you were looking for someone around ten years older.

Death record for Willmott Willmott-Dixon which shows his age at death as 70, which is correct.



Here he is in the 1911 census, occupation is author and place of birth is The Isle of Man.



Here is his birth record (17 December 1843) from The Isle of Man.

[Senya13]

Thank you. That still doesn't fit the details given out by the writer in certain articles in the publication (who stated he was 19 years old in 1853). Gerard Austin (former editor of 'Mirror of Life', whom Bradley succeeded) stated in his obituary of Bradley:

"It was in 1901, I think, that Frank returned to London and became associated with a paper called "Famous Fights." The chief contributor to the journal was Willmott Dixon, who had seen Sayers, Heenan, Mace, Travers and a whole host of good men fight under the old rules."

As Dixon was the author of books dedicated to racing, hunting and fishing, among others, I thought he fit , but, based on his age, no, he didn't. He couldn't have been present at Sayers' fight in 1853, but I suppose it's possible he could have been at Sayers-Heenan (being 16 years old) and could have seen Travers (last fought in 1863).

So my guess is he might have edited and expanded the articles written by somebody else (shorter versions of which were previously published in Illustrated Police Budget several years earlier), and/or might have authored some of the write-ups himself based on Bell's Life reports found by assistants (Bradley was one of the people digging up things in the library, for the publication, according to Austin's obituary).