SEven, eight, nine, ten… The Belgian referee stopped counting, opened his arms to signal the end of the game, and stared sympathetically down at the figure lying on the canvas. British boxer and war hero Frank Dove’s Olympic career ended less than five minutes into the match at Antwerp’s Celebration Hall when he was struck in the jaw with a right-hand sledgehammer by Denmark’s Søren Petersen.
On that warm August afternoon more than a hundred years ago, only a handful of fans and officials were scattered around the ring to witness the quarterfinals of a heavyweight contest.
Dove was unconscious for several minutes as panicked referees and officials struggled to find a stretcher to get him out of the ring, before having to use smelling salts to revive him. With Dove’s 23rd birthday just weeks away, the British had high hopes for him to win a medal at the 1920 Olympics. After all, he was a decent light heavyweight who not only won the varsity championship earlier that same year, but was also ranked high in the ABA division.
But Britain was short of heavyweights, so they put Dove on Belgium’s Olympic team. With just nine boxers competing in the heavyweight division, three of them British, Dove received a bye in the first round and went straight into the quarter-finals. That’s where his luck ran out a minute or so into the second round. Ron Rosen of London eventually defeated Peterson in the final to win the gold medal.
Although the British boxers won two gold medals, one silver and three bronze medals, their efforts were considered a disaster, with the Daily Herald headlined their story “Our boxing failure” and condemned us efforts, while also suggesting that “the fact remains that this much-despised foreigner is at the forefront as an artist with his fists.”
Their reporter was shocked by Dove’s defeat, writing: “Dove was a terror in the amateur championships when he won the cadet’s weight prize. He beat his opponent twice as fast, but Peterson Performed so well in the second round that Dove was “out” for quite some time. Peterson must have had a peach. Dove is or was a near-championship player.”
I met Dove while discovering the story of Britain’s first black Olympic medalist Harry Edward, whose lost memoirs I edited and published this month. Dove and Edward were the only black members of the British team that competed at the 1920 Olympics.
Unlike Edward, Dove was born in London, England, at the end of the 19th century. His father was a wealthy businessman from Sierra Leone who later became a bar owner in Freetown. Dove Sr. used his wealth to ensure that his children received a proper education, so Frank was promptly sent to Cranley Public School, where he was one of the first black students. He excelled in almost everything and became a regular on the cricket and football teams and was a member of the highly successful Cranleigh gymnastics team.
He did not take up boxing until he attended Merton College, Oxford, and realized that his athleticism, speed and size made him an ideal light heavyweight boxer.
The First World War disrupted everything and in 1916 he joined the Royal Tank Corps, first as a dispatch rider and later as a tank driver, participating in the first tank battle at Cambrai in 1917. On the fourth day of the battle his tank took a direct hit, killing four of its crew and wounding three. As the only uninjured crew member, he stayed with the injured crew members until help arrived, then jumped back into the tank and single-handedly attempted to return it to the battle. But minutes later, a nearby tanker was hit by another German shell and he was seriously injured. For the courage shown on this occasion, he was awarded the Military Medal.
The extremely modest Dove did not even mention the story to his family, with Africa Telegraph writing that he was “so modest that we could not get any details from him about his heroic deeds”. After the war he returned to Oxford to complete his law studies and found time to continue his boxing career, winning a blue card and becoming British Varsity Champion in 1920.
He qualified as a solicitor in 1923 and became a successful solicitor, working in London and West Africa, but continued boxing into his 50s. That same year, writer J.G. Bohun Lynch documented his talents in the Illustrated Sports & Dramatic News, while reviewing Dove’s triumphs at the London Inter-Hospital Event. “I remember seeing Dove Box at Oxford and being so impressed with him, he was the best middleweight I’d ever seen at both universities (he won the heavyweight fight, but he Just a middleweight). He’s big, he’s fast, he hits the ball really hard, and he has long arms, which is usually a heritage of people of African ancestry.”
Dove won multiple ABA regional championships, his claim to fame being a harrowing encounter in the semifinals of the 1931 National ABA Championship in London, where, in the words of the Daily Mirror, “he Had a great battle” with 19-year-old Jack Petersen, eventually beating him and winning the final. Peterson went on to become the British and Imperial heavyweight champion and one of the best British boxers of his era.
Dove married in 1919 and had three children, one of whom, Anthony, became a professional boxer in the 1950s. Frank’s sister Evelyn had real family cachet, becoming a hugely successful cabaret star and the first black female singer to appear on BBC radio, as well as the first singer to have her own series on television. It is thought that her risqué stage costumes caused her Victorian father to disown her.
Dove rose to prominence as a barrister, rowed successfully with clubs on the south coast and went on to pursue his love of boxing – both fighting and refereeing – becoming secretary of Brighton and Battersea Amateur Boxing Club. During World War II he was a second lieutenant in the Pioneers. He remained a hugely popular figure in amateur boxing and at the age of 50 he defeated Battersea heavyweight Eddie Hearn (no relation) in a divisional championship in south London.
He died aged 59, days after he was involved in a bizarre traffic accident in Wolverhampton when the brakes of his Jaguar visibly locked up and he was traveling to Wales to meet with his tank unit veteran. On the way to reunite with their comrades, they bumped head-on into a tree.
Dove may not have a boxing belt and trophies, but he’s still a true Olympian and a true champion.
The Lost Memoirs of Harry Edward When I pass the Statue of Liberty I turn blackedited by Neil Duncanson and published by Yale University Press on February 20
