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Pat O'Keeffe (17 March 1883 – 16 August 1960, spelled by many sources as Pat O'Keefe), was a professional English boxer who became the British champion in both the
Later that year, O'Keeffe toured Australia with Tommy Burns, the World Heavyweight Champion. At Burns is the shortest boxer ever to hold the title which he won in 1906. He also managed to successfully defend it eleven times against all claimants until he met with Jack Johnson on Boxing Day in 1908.
While in Australia, O'Keeffe and Burns trained together and used to invite the public to watch these exhibitions of their skills.
O'Keeffe fought a number of contests in Australia, mostly against heavier opponents, winning two, drawing one and losing three.
O'Keeffe successfully defended his middleweight title two months later against Nichol Simpson. In May of the same year he earned a second notch on his belt by defeating Jim Sullivan who had himself held the belt in 1910 when he beat an old adversary of O'Keeffe's, Tom Thomas. O'Keeffe earned £650 for winning this fight.
A year later in March 1915, he fought and knocked out the heavyweight, 
Just three months later, on 22 May 1916, O'Keeffe was at the N.S.C to fight Bandsman Blake again. The £500 match went the full 20 rounds. "The contest was not a good one" according to the ''Sheffield Independent''. In the 12th round, the referee gave both fighters a last warning that he would order them out of the ring if they did not alter their methods. The paper reported that blame for this messy fight lay squarely with Blake, citing his constant clinching and holding, which was employed to avoid the infighting quality of O'Keeffe. Blake won the fight on points, a verdict "received by a crowded house with something almost akin to amazement", the ''Sheffield Independent'' states.
Thus, O'Keeffe lost both the Championship and his Lonsdale Belt. Following this fight, both O'Keeffe and Blake were posted to France and the return fight demanded by the fans could not take place until their return.
On the 28 January 1918, O'Keeffe fought his last professional fight, defeating Blake to win the Lonsdale Belt outright along with an N.S.C Pension.
In an article two days later, the ''Sportsman'' reported on the tributes being paid to O'Keeffe at the N.S.C. "No more popular ring victor in recent years has been seen than Sergt Pat O'Keeffe", it begins. Arthur Frederick Bettinson, one of the founding members of the Club remarked on O'Keeffe's exploits, remembering his name on the belt in both 1914 and 1918 and congratulated him as a sportsman and a man. O'Keeffe replied to these tributes modestly, saying that securing the Lonsdale Belt as his own was one of his key ambitions in his career. He would now concentrate on charity and family he said. O'Keeffe retired from professional boxing having made many lifelong friends.
Pat O'Keeffe vs Billy Wells-British Army exhibition match-1916
From British Pathe
Soldier Boxer Corpl Pat O'keefe To Fight Sullivan (1914-1918)
From British Pathe
welterweight
Welterweight is a weight class in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like Muay Thai, taekwondo, and mixed martial arts also use it for their own weight division system to classify th ...
and middleweight
Middleweight is a weight class in combat sports.
Boxing Professional
In professional boxing, the middleweight division is contested above and up to .
Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have be ...
weight classes. His professional career spanned the years between 1902 and 1918. In 1914 he made an unsuccessful bid for the European heavyweight belt, losing to Georges Carpentier
Georges Carpentier (; 12 January 1894 – 28 October 1975) was a French boxer, actor and World War I pilot. He fought mainly as a light heavyweight and heavyweight in a career lasting from 1908 to 1926. Nicknamed the "Orchid Man", he stood and h ...
. Between 1907 and 1910 he left Britain and continued his boxing career in the United States, and then Australia. On the outbreak of World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
he joined the British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...
to work as a Physical Training Instructor (PTI) and Recruiting Sergeant
A recruiting sergeant is a British or American soldier of the rank of sergeant who is tasked to enlist recruits. The term originated in the British army of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The playwright George Farquhar served as an inf ...
for the 1st Surrey Rifles. He won the Lonsdale Belt outright when he defeated Bandsman Blake at the National Sporting Club (N.S.C) on 28 January 1918, becoming British Middleweight Champion.
O'Keeffe died on 16 August 1960 at the Mount Vernon Hospital
Mount Vernon Hospital is located in Northwood, an area of north-west Greater London. It is one of two hospitals run by The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
History
The hospital was founded as The North London Hospital for Co ...
in Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...
, aged 77.
Professional boxing
Early career: 1902-1907
One of O'Keeffe's earliest recorded fights was against Jack Palmer. O'Keeffe defeated him on two occasions over six rounds during 1902. In 1903, at the age of twenty, he beat Jack Kingsland in a match fought at the Olympia centre in London to win the title of Welterweight Champion of England. In 1906, having fought many of the top contenders for the British Middleweight Title, O'Keeffe was elected to contest the championship. He won the title beating Mike Crawley in a fight that lasted fifteen rounds. One month later, O'Keeffe defended the title against Charlie Allum and knocked him out in the sixth round. O'Keeffe lost the belt in his next bout to Tom Thomas at the National Sporting Club (N.S.C.) by a narrow points margin. A year later in Paris, O'Keeffe defeated Allum again by knock out and won £200. This bout was billed the French Middleweight Championship. O'Keeffe never defended the claim.International career: 1907-1910
After losing the British Middleweight Championship title, O'Keeffe travelled the world and fought all over the United States and Australia. In 1907, he foughtWorld Middleweight Champion Championship recognition
1884–1910
Champions were recognized by public acclamation. A champion in that era was a fighter who had a notable win over another fighter and kept winning afterward. Retirements or disputed results could lead to a cha ...
Billy Papke and World Welterweight Champion
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
Henry Lewis with just over a month's rest between bouts. The match in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
with Papke was very hard-fought, ending in a draw. He lost his bout with Henry Lewis in Boston, Massachusetts by decision. His next fight was against Willie Lewis originally scheduled for 19 December 1907, but the police placed an injunction on the venue in New York . The fight went ahead on 23 December 1907. W.Lewis is said to have entered O'Keeffe's dressing room just before the fight, berating his apparent belly, quipping that he might kill him if he punched him there. O'Keeffe lost by knock out. Despite not winning a bout in the US, O'Keeffe was upbeat and in February 1908, he returned to England. He placed a message in the '' Sporting Life,'' declaring "he is here for business", in a wide-ranging article that revealed he contracted malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. ...
in the US. The article claimed that anyone who wanted to challenge the statement need only send money to the ''Sporting Life'', with correspondence addressed to O'Keeffe and it would receive his immediate attention.
Answering O'Keeffe's message in the ''Sporting Life'', fellow Canning Town
Canning Town is a district in the London Borough of Newham, East London. The district is located to the north of the Royal Victoria Dock, and has been described as the "Child of the Victoria Docks" as the timing and nature of its urbanisation ...
boxer Steve Smith took on O'Keeffe at the Wonderland Francais, Paris, the match ended in a draw. Less than two weeks later at the same venue, he was disqualified for a low blow in the fourth round against Jeff Thorne.
Later that year, O'Keeffe toured Australia with Tommy Burns, the World Heavyweight Champion. At Burns is the shortest boxer ever to hold the title which he won in 1906. He also managed to successfully defend it eleven times against all claimants until he met with Jack Johnson on Boxing Day in 1908.
While in Australia, O'Keeffe and Burns trained together and used to invite the public to watch these exhibitions of their skills.
O'Keeffe fought a number of contests in Australia, mostly against heavier opponents, winning two, drawing one and losing three.
Late career: 1911–1918
He did not fight again in England until 1911, when he fought Eddie McGoorty, losing on points over fifteen rounds. McGoorty went on to become world champion in 1915. After this loss O'Keeffe won his next five fights between 1911 and 1913. His next defeat was a points decision against Private Jim Harris which he reversed over twenty rounds two months later, after defeating Frank Mantell twice in seven days. On 4 August 1913 he challengedBombardier Billy Wells
William Thomas Wells, better known as Bombardier Billy Wells (31 August 1889 – 12 June 1967), was an English heavyweight boxer. Fighting under the name "Bombardier Billy Wells", he was British and British Empire Champion from 1911 un ...
for the British Heavyweight Championship. He was a tall heavyweight who was almost three stones heavier than O'Keeffe, but it took fifteen rounds before Wells succeeded in knocking him out.
O'Keeffe's next bout was against the young prodigy Georges Carpentier
Georges Carpentier (; 12 January 1894 – 28 October 1975) was a French boxer, actor and World War I pilot. He fought mainly as a light heavyweight and heavyweight in a career lasting from 1908 to 1926. Nicknamed the "Orchid Man", he stood and h ...
. The match was billed as the Heavyweight Championship of Europe although both men were under the light heavyweight weight limit. He was knocked out in two rounds by the man who, at the time, appeared capable of beating all of Europe's boxers in quick succession. O'Keeffe gave a simple no-nonsense reason for his defeat to the ''Sheffield Daily Telegraph'': "He was too big and strong for me."
His next fight was against Henry Reeve for the British Middleweight Championship on 2 February 1914. O'Keeffe won on points over twenty rounds. Later Reeve moved up to the light heavyweight division and won the British championship in 1916 against Dick Smith.
O'Keeffe successfully defended his middleweight title two months later against Nichol Simpson. In May of the same year he earned a second notch on his belt by defeating Jim Sullivan who had himself held the belt in 1910 when he beat an old adversary of O'Keeffe's, Tom Thomas. O'Keeffe earned £650 for winning this fight.
A year later in March 1915, he fought and knocked out the heavyweight, Joe Beckett
Joseph Beckett (4 April 1892 – 12 March 1965), also known by the nickname of "Joe", born in Wickham, Hampshire was an English professional light heavy/cruiser/heavyweight boxer of the 1910s and early 1920s, who won the National Sporting ...
in eight rounds. Following this O'Keeffe had a return fight with Jim Sullivan. Although it was billed as being for the British Middleweight Title, the fight was not endorsed by the N.S.C; therefore, the Lonsdale Belt was not at stake on this occasion. The two met again on 21 February 1916. Jimmy Wilde, the former Flyweight champion, described the fight as the most punishing he had ever seen. Both men fought as though their lives depended on it. The ring and spectators sitting nearby were splashed with blood by the end of the battle and it can be seen from photographs of the event that Sullivan's white shorts were dark with blood by the end of twenty rounds when O'Keeffe gained the decision. Two months later he fought Bandsman Blake and knocked him out in the thirteenth round. Blake had a fine record at this stage having lost to only one man to date in his five-year professional career, Bombardier Billy Wells.
Just three months later, on 22 May 1916, O'Keeffe was at the N.S.C to fight Bandsman Blake again. The £500 match went the full 20 rounds. "The contest was not a good one" according to the ''Sheffield Independent''. In the 12th round, the referee gave both fighters a last warning that he would order them out of the ring if they did not alter their methods. The paper reported that blame for this messy fight lay squarely with Blake, citing his constant clinching and holding, which was employed to avoid the infighting quality of O'Keeffe. Blake won the fight on points, a verdict "received by a crowded house with something almost akin to amazement", the ''Sheffield Independent'' states.
Thus, O'Keeffe lost both the Championship and his Lonsdale Belt. Following this fight, both O'Keeffe and Blake were posted to France and the return fight demanded by the fans could not take place until their return.
On the 28 January 1918, O'Keeffe fought his last professional fight, defeating Blake to win the Lonsdale Belt outright along with an N.S.C Pension.
In an article two days later, the ''Sportsman'' reported on the tributes being paid to O'Keeffe at the N.S.C. "No more popular ring victor in recent years has been seen than Sergt Pat O'Keeffe", it begins. Arthur Frederick Bettinson, one of the founding members of the Club remarked on O'Keeffe's exploits, remembering his name on the belt in both 1914 and 1918 and congratulated him as a sportsman and a man. O'Keeffe replied to these tributes modestly, saying that securing the Lonsdale Belt as his own was one of his key ambitions in his career. He would now concentrate on charity and family he said. O'Keeffe retired from professional boxing having made many lifelong friends.
Military service during World War I
. At the start of 1915, O'Keeffe joined the 1st Surrey Rifles. He was a Physical Training Instructor and Recruiting Sergeant. This is an excerpt from an Article about O'Keeffe's recruiting skill: He found Army life at the Regiment's home atCamberwell
Camberwell () is a district of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross.
Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles and a common of which Goose Green is a remnant. This ...
suited his boxing training well. With good, plain food, strict routine and drill, plenty of sparring partners, and ample space to train, he thrived in a friendly atmosphere where he was very popular with the men.
O'Keeffe and other boxer-turned-soldiers planned activities to help boost the morale of injured troops. One such time was an organised boat trip down the Thames.
Retirement
O'Keeffe remained a public figure for many years. He took a seat on the inauguralBritish Boxing Board of Control
The British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) is the governing body of professional boxing in the United Kingdom.
History
The British Boxing Board of Control was formed in 1929 from the old National Sporting Club and is headquartered in Cardif ...
with fellow ex- champion boxers Billy Wells
William Thomas Wells, better known as Bombardier Billy Wells (31 August 1889 – 12 June 1967), was an English heavyweight boxer. Fighting under the name "Bombardier Billy Wells", he was British and British Empire Champion from 1911 un ...
and Jim Driscoll. He participated in charity events, such as boxing an Aston Villa
Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park, ...
footballer player, refereed amateur tournaments and took part in charity exhibition matches, most notably with his old rival Bombardier Billy Wells. These exhibitions could some times get heated, with O'Keeffe said to have once shouted "Stop it Billy! - I'm not the Kaiser!". O'Keeffe was a regular star spectator at big bouts. He also had his own boxing column in the '' Daily Herald'' for a while
O'Keeffe carried on working. He was engaged in the licensing business, was a Publican and was involved in bookmaking. The French and British armies employed him as a boxing instructor in 1925.
In March 1938, the N.S.C. moved into new premises in Piccadilly
Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Cour ...
and held a banquet to honour the occasion. There were hosts of fighters presented including many of the old timers, Jimmy Wilde, Billy Wells
William Thomas Wells, better known as Bombardier Billy Wells (31 August 1889 – 12 June 1967), was an English heavyweight boxer. Fighting under the name "Bombardier Billy Wells", he was British and British Empire Champion from 1911 un ...
, Teddy Baldock
Teddy "The Pride Of Poplar" Baldock (24 May 1907 — 8 March 1971) born in Poplar, London was an English professional bantam/ feather/lightweight boxer of the 1920s and 1930s who won the National Sporting Club (NSC) (subsequently known as t ...
, Pedlar Palmer
Pedlar Palmer, born Thomas Palmer, (1876 – 13 February 1949) was an English boxer who held the world bantamweight championship from 1895–1899.
Life
Palmer was born in Canning Town, London on 19 November 1876. His father was a bare-knuckl ...
, Tancy Lee
James "Tancy" Lee (31 January 1882 – 5 February 1941) was a Scottish professional boxer who competed from 1906 to 1926. He held the IBU world, EBU European and the National Sporting Club’s British flyweight titles in 1915, becoming the fir ...
, Johnny Basham
John Michael Basham (1890 – 7 June 1947) was a Welsh boxer who became British and European champion at both welter and middleweight. His professional career spanned over 20 years, from 1909 to 1929, and after being stationed in Wrexham thr ...
and O'Keeffe.
O’Keeffe died 16 August 1960 at the Mount Vernon Hospital in Middlesex, aged 77.
Professional boxing record
O'Keeffe's professional boxing record can be summarised as follows: , style="text-align:center;" colspan="8", Notable bouts , - style="text-align:center; background:#e3e3e3;" , style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Res. , style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Record , style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Opponent , style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Type , style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Round , style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Date , style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Location , style="border-style:none none solid solid; ", Notes , - align=center , Win , 77-24-7 , align=left, , , , , align=left, , align=left, , - align=center , loss , 75-23-7 , align=left, , , , , align=left, , align=left, , - align=center , win , 60-23-7 , align=left, , , , , align=left, , align=left, , - align=center , loss , 60-22-7 , align=left, , , , , align=left, , align=left, , -align=center , loss , 59-20-7 , align=left, , , , , align=left, , align=left, , -align=center , loss , 48-14-6 , align=left, , , , , align=left, , align=left, , -align=center , style="background:#abcdef;", Draw , 48-11-4 , align=left, , , , , align=left, , align=left, , -align=center , win , 28-10-4 , align=left, , , , , align=left, , align=left, , -align=center , win , 6-1-0 , align=left, , , , , align=left, , align=left,See also
*List of British middleweight boxing champions
List of British middleweight boxing champions is a table showing the boxers who have won the British middleweight title. The title has been sanctioned by the National Sporting Club since 1909, and later by its replacement the British Boxing Board ...
* List of British welterweight boxing champions
* Lonsdale Belt
References
General references
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Video
Pat O'Keeffe vs Billy Wells-British Army exhibition match-1916
From British Pathe
Soldier Boxer Corpl Pat O'keefe To Fight Sullivan (1914-1918)
From British Pathe
External links
* , - {{DEFAULTSORT:O'Keeffe, Pat 1883 births 1960 deaths English male boxers People from Canning Town Welterweight boxers Middleweight boxers Boxers from Greater London British Army personnel of World War I