Peter Jackson (boxer)

Peter "Black Prince" Jackson (3 July 1861 – 13 July 1901) was a heavyweight boxer from Australia who had a significant international career.

Biography

Jackson was born in Christiansted on the island Saint Croix, which was then the capital of the Danish West Indies. (Subsequently, it became part of the U.S. Virgin Islands.) His family originally came from Montego Bay, Jamaica.

His father, also called Peter Jackson, was a warehouseman and he was the grandson of a freed slave who had been owned by a planter with the surname of Jackson.

Born a free man, the future boxer was in fact a Danish citizen before he gained Australian citizenship. Jackson had a good primary school education before becoming a mariner. Landing in Sydney about 1880, he worked on the waterfront and in hotels before drifting to Brisbane, and thence into a career in boxing in 1882 under the tuition of Larry Foley, a famous Australian bare-knuckle pugilist and instructor.

Standing 6' 1½" tall and weighing in at 192–210 lbs he became the winner of the Australian Heavyweight championship in 1886. Originally working on ships as a deck hand in the Sydney Docks since he was 14, he used his fist to quell a mutiny. This garnered him some notoriety and brought him to the attention of Larry Foley and started his career in boxing. He came to be known as "Black Prince" and "Peter the Great".

Career

Jackson won the...
Read More