100% natural combed cotton. 190g
Round neck, short sleeves.
LOOP KNITTING. Tubular cut.
Felt print
Made in FRANCE - Knitted in DORDOGNE
MEEKINS "the TATTOOED" - the man with 1700 fights.
Jack Meekins was born on May 16, 1880 in Lambeth, in the southern suburbs of London.
At the age of 11, when Jack's stepmother was pregnant with his second child, his father had deserted the home, but it seems that he came and went within the family nucleus. But a week after his first departure, Alice and Jack joined the Woolwich Union Workhouse asylums for the indigent. Jack left the asylum on February 10, 1892 after two months of detention.
More than a year later, on March 24, 1893, he returned to the asylum to perfect what seems to me to be the beginning of his interest in bare knuckle boxing! He was sent there by the police and expelled 6 days later. That was the last time he went there but it is not clear why Jack at the age of 12 needed the police intervention, but one suspects that he did.
At the age of 14, Jack entered the more "official" boxing world and his career seemed very promising.
Meekins began his boxing career in the Royal Navy. In 1899 he won the Warwickshire Regimental Championship and in 1901 he was the Malta Champion. The following year he was sent home by the regiment to win the Army and Navy Championship in Aldershot.
After that he started boxing professionally. In 1903 he went to New York to meet Nelson, who was at that time world welter champion. He returned to England and was hired by Jack Wolf to come to the famous
"Wonderland", the pre-war boxing center in East End.
Although weighing only 65, 316 kg, Meekins made more than 1000 fights during the short time he was there and met men of all weights, including some of the best heavyweights of the time.
He gained notoriety in 1905, following the sensational defeat of the French savate champion and proved once and for all to the sports enthusiasts of France that the fist game won every time with the feet. As a result of this fight*, "savate" disappeared little by little in France.
After that he left Rothschild and joined "Peggy" Bettison at the N.S.C.1 who sent him back to France to train some of the best future French boxers. There he met Georges Carpentier, who beat him on points. This is what created the Carpentier legend.
Two of Meekins' last fights were against Harry and Willy Lewis just before the Great War. He retired from the sport in 1914 with an incredible record.
Meekins was an old school fighter. By his example and his courage he inspired many young fighters of today.
Shortly after 1914, Jack worked for more than 20 years as a cab driver,
At the beginning of 1937 he had a road accident that disabled him.
Jack MEEKINS died on August 7, 1950 in Kingston-upon-Thames, aged 70.
