William DEES

Bill Dees was the 1897 ABA middleweight champion and 1900 heavyweight champion. After that latter success, he took part in very few public engagements, but was happier working at his own club, the relatively newly formed Old Goldsmiths’ BC, where he worked with junior members. He stayed fit and got back down to the middleweight limit, and was selected for the 1908 Olympics, but fell in his first bout to the eventual silver medallist Snowy Baker. Dees served on the Amateur Boxing Association and, in 1932, was unanimously voted as its president. He held the post for six years, when he became honorary secretary. Sadly, a little over a year later, Dees was killed in his London home, in one of the air raids during the infamous Blitz of October 1940.