Crowd at Burns v Patrick fight newsreel, 821946 Sam Hood

Geoffrey Mostyn Murphy (19 May 1922 – 14 February 2011) was an Australian boxer who fought under the name Tommy Burns (after the Canadian boxer). He was born in

Mullumbimby Mullumbimby is an Australian town in the Byron Shire in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. It promotes itself as "The Biggest Little Town in Australia". The town lies at the foot of Mount Chincogan in the Brunswick Valley about 9 k ...

, New South Wales, but spent most of his life in the neighbouring Australian state of Queensland. Murphy chose his fighting name in honour of the Canadian heavyweight boxer and former world champion, Tommy Burns, who lost his title to Jack Johnson in Australia in 1908. In 1947, he won the Australian Welterweight Championship and fought many of the best Australian boxers of his era, becoming a crowd favourite. He appeared in the 1949 Charles Chauvel Australian movie

Sons of Matthew ''Sons of Matthew'' is a 1949 Australian film directed and produced and co-written by Charles Chauvel. The film was shot in 1947 on location in Queensland, Australia, and the studio sequences in Sydney. ''Sons of Matthew'' took 18 months to comp ...

. Murphy, as Tommy Burns, was inducted into the

Australian National Boxing Hall of Fame Australian National Boxing Hall of Fame was founded in 2001 and began inducting boxers into the Hall of Fame in 2003. Since then annual induction dinners have been held across Australia. Inductees are nominated and then voted upon by a panel of ...

in 2004. He died on 14 February 2011.Knockout bloke and pugilist
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Sources

*The Australian Film and Television Companion, ed. Tony Harrison pub. Simon and Schuster, Australia 1994

External links

Neil Bennetts interview at National Library of AustraliaBiographical information supplied to National Library by son Peter Murphy in December 2009Boxing record at BoxRec

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burns, Tommy 1922 births 2011 deaths People from the Northern Rivers Australian male boxers Welterweight boxers Sportsmen from New South Wales