Description:Dick Turpin and Family
[submitted by Birmingham Stories]
It is often observed amongst archivists that we frequently come across some of our most interesting findings when we are searching for something quite different. This was certainly the case with the way in which the Birmingham Stories team stumbled across the story of Dick Turpin. When searching through the local newspaper collections for articles about the landing of the Empire Windrush in June, 1948, we came across a series of stories about a now, little-known man by the name of Dick Turpin. At the time of the landing of the Empire Windrush, Dick Turpin held the Middleweight Championship of the British Empire. Six days later, he would become the first black person to gain the British middleweight Championship.
The Story of Dick and his family, once again, highlights the longevity of the black presence in Britain, and in the West Midlands. It also further debunks the myth that black and Asian migration to Britain began in the post-war period.
Dick was the eldest of the three Turpin brothers. His younger brothers, Jackie, and Randolph, also known as the ‘Leamington Licker,’ would go on to become boxers as well. Randolph would become the best known of the three, especially after his defeat of Sugar Ray Robinson, in 1951, to become the world Heavyweight champion. A statue stands in his honour in the market square in Warwick.
The Turpins were the children of a West Indian father who stowed away to Britain to join the army during the First World War, and a white mother from the midlands. The above Picture Post feature states that the brothers’ father died after being gassed in the trenches. This left their mother to raise the boys, often with very little. The feature goes on to describe how the brothers would sometimes have to share a bed, and ‘a single helping of fish and chips, eaten off a newspaper.’ Dick, like his father, would also serve in the armed forces. He was offered a chance of exemption, in order to pursue the boxing world title, but instead, chose to join the army to serve on the African, Italian and German fronts, during the Second World War.
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The newspaper entitled 'Dramatic knock-out in First Round' (19th May 1948 Birmingham Gazette) features coverage of Turpin upon his victory of the Middleweight Championship of the British Empire, on the 18th of May, 1948. Turpin knocked out Bos Newfield, of New Zealand, in only 2 minutes and 55 seconds, in front of 22,000 people at the Coventry City football ground. The paper continues to report that, ‘It was, however, a night of success and defeat for the Turpins, for Jackie, the youngest, was knocked out in the fifth round by Ben Duffy (Jarrow) in the fight immediately following his brother’s success.’ As we shall see, however, the featherweight, Jackie would go on to avenge his defeat against Duffy through out-pointing him in the following month.
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The following series of articles come only one month after Turpin’s win over New Zealand’s Bos Newfield, and ascendancy to Middleweight Champion of the British Empire. These items, from The Birmingham Gazette, and The Birmingham Mail, feature stories about Dick Turpin’s victory over Vince Hawkins, of Eastleigh, on the 28th of June, in front of a crowd of 40,000 people, at Villa Park. Turpin beat Hawkins on points to become the first ever black, British Middleweight Champion. The Birmingham Gazette described the event as the ‘Midlands’ biggest boxing attraction for many years’.
Clearly, even as a title holder, and close to the height of his career, Dick was far from a wealthy man. One of the articles reports that the Warwick local sometimes helped to serve behind the bar of the Roebuck Inn, in the town. There, he also played on the pub’s darts team.
The persistent description of Turpin as a ‘coloured man,’ or ‘coloured boy,’ even when his opponent is being described as a [railway]‘man’ (Birmingham Gazette 29/06/1948), speaks volumes about the papers’ fixation on ‘race,’ and the paternalistic attitudes towards black people at the time. In addition, the description of Turpin as ‘oil-skinned,’ while, like the nickname, ‘bob-sider,’ perhaps, an endearing reference to his ability to ‘bob and weave’ also has clear, caricaturing, racial connotations.
Typically, the ‘racial’ discourse was deeply contradictory. There was, at the same time, a clear sense of pride in Turpin’s achievements, and an attempt to claim him as a local man. The description of Turpin as a ‘coloured man,’ or ‘coloured boy,’ constructs him as an ‘other,’ and ‘foreign,’ and therefore distances him from the ‘self’ and the ‘local.’ In contrast, however, the description of Turpin as a ‘Warwick man,’ perhaps suggests that a (successful) person can be both ‘coloured’ and ‘local.’ Indeed, the popularity of the Turpins amongst Midlanders is highlighted in a further Gazette article, where the journalist writes: ‘Special buses and trains had taken hundreds of supporters from the Warwick and Leamington areas.’