Name: Lionel Cecil Whitehouse (Dick) Turpin
Born: 26 November 1920 Leamington Spa, England
Died: 7 July 1990 Leamington Spa, England
Career: 1937 to 1950
Record: 110 fights, 83 wins ( 35 by KO/TKO), 21 losses (8 by KO/TKO), 5 draws, 1 No Decision.
Division: Middleweight
Stance: Orthodox
Titles: British and Commonwealth middleweight champion
Major Contests
Scored wins over: Jimmy Griffiths, Charley Parkin, Ben Valentine (twice), Vince Hawkins (thrice), Mark Hart, Bos Murphy, Albert Finch, George Ross,
Lost against: Charley Parkin(twice), Jimmy Griffiths, Eddie Maguire, Tiberio Mitri*, Marcel Cerdan **, Dave Sands, Albert Finch(twice), Cyrille Delannoit
Drew with: Eddie Maguire, Tiberio Mitri*,
**Past/ future holder of a version of a world title
* Unsuccessful challenger for a version of a world title
Dick Turpin’s ‘s Story
Dick Turpin was one of three boxing brothers who between them had 135 professional fights. Their father Lionel was born in Guyana and served in the merchant Navy eventually settling in England and finding work there. He enlisted in the British army in 1915 and was sent to France in 1916. Whilst fighting in 1918 he suffered injuries in a gas attack which left him with lung damage and he was discharged on medical grounds in 1919. He married Beatrice Whitehouse, a white woman. Mixed race marriages were very rare in those days and the town in which they lived, Leamington Spa, being an affluent country town meant mixed race couples were even rarer there. They had five children but Lionel died shortly after the birth of their youngest son Randy in 1928. Life was very hard for mother Beatrice and the boys who faced bullying and prejudice due to them being black. They were encouraged by Beatrice to learn look to look after themselves and first Dick and then younger brothers Jackie and Randy took up boxing.
Dick Turpin had his first professional fight on 27 September 1937 at the age of 16. He won that fight but was knocked out in his second fight. He kept busy mainly fighting in the local area against older and more experienced opponents. He had 8 more fights in the remaining three months of 1937, 15 in 1938 and 23 in 1939 by which time he had compiled a record of 36-8-2- so 46 fights in less than 3 years and he had also won his first title, the British Midlands Area middleweight title.
In July 1939 Like so many others he was called up to join the British Army and served in World War II with the result that he had only one fight between December 1940 and February 1946. He again started boxing on a busy schedule losing occasional fights so that by February 1947 his record stood at 54-14-3 with no indication of what was to follow. After drawing with Bert Sanders in February 1947 he scored 23 consecutive wins. Included in that run was a first round kayo of New Zealander Bos Murphy to win his first major title-the Empire (Commonwealth) middleweight title. He had also beaten two of the top white middleweights in Britain, Vince Hawkins and Mark Hart. Turpin’s success made him an obvious challenger for the British title.
In 1911, when Jack Johnson was world heavyweight champion, there was talk of him fighting British heavyweight “Bombardier” Billy Wells in London. Johnson had fought and won a contest in England in 1908 before he became champion and before he had become such a controversial figure. In 1911 things had changed and there were such loud protests against a black man fighting a white man that in the end the then Home Secretary Winston Churchill stepped in and banned the fight. The British Boxing Board of Control then introduced a regulation that for a fighter to contest the British title he must be born of white parentage-effectively a colour bar.
That regulation was repealed in 1947 and with Turpin having staked such an undeniable claim to being the leading middleweight in Britain he was approved to fight Vince Hawkins for the vacant title with Turpin’s Empire title also on the line.
They fought on 28 June 1948 in front of 40,000 people at Villa Park in Birmingham, the home Aston Villa football team, and Turpin won on points to become the first black fighter to win a British title in the modern era. An achievement that inspired the many non-white fighters active in Britain at the time.
In November in London Turpin drew with Italian Tiberio Mitri (Mitri would go on to challenge Jake LaMotta for the world title and in 1954 Mitri stopped Dick’s younger brother and former world champion Randy in 65 seconds). Turpin fought Mitri again in March 1949 in Italy (the first of only two fights outside England in his 110 fight career) and lost on points. Just 17 days later he was knocked out in the seventh round by world champion Marcel Cardan in a non-title fight. Inconceivable today that a fighter should fight two opponents such as Mitri and Cerdan within a 17 day period.
Still only 29 Turpin had already had 109 fights and many of those had been fifteen round fights. He was not yet finished as in June 1949 with 30,000 fans in attendance he outpointed Albert Finch to retain the British and Empire titles but in September lost the Empire title when he was knocked out in the first round by Australia’s Dave Sands. It was downhill from there. Although he scored four wins that was followed by four losses including both a defeat on points against Finch, which saw Turpin lose his British title, and in his last fight in March a loss to Finch on cut in a non-title fight. The Turpin family did get a degree of revenge as seven months later Randy, trained by Dick, knocked out Finch in five round to make a Turpin British middleweight champion again.
Dick continued to be involved in boxing training Randy, who would become a national hero when he beat Sugar Ray Robinson in a fight for the worlds middleweight title in July 1951. Dick also worked with local boxing clubs.
A portrait of Dick was put up in Warwick Old Court House close to the statue of brother Randy and in 2022 an award was given posthumously by the British Boxing Board of Control to the three Turpin brothers in recognition of their achievements.
The family suffered two tragedies. Dick’s son Michael died in July 1939 at just four months old and brother Randy committed suicide in 1966.
Trivia warning
How did Lionel become Dick? The British have a tendency to assign nicknames. Any Scotsman, irrespective of his Christian name or surname, is liable to have the nickname of “Jock”. People with the surname of Miller were often given the nickname of “Dusty” referring to the dust they would create when dealing with grain and a Clark was often given the nickname of “Nobby” which is thought to derive from the requirement that clerks in the City of London were required to wear top hats. The word “Nob” referring to a posh gentleman who would only feel suitably dressed wearing a top hat.
I have not been able to establish it but it is possible that anyone called Turpin would attract the nickname of “Dick” after the name of Dick Turpin the most famous highwayman in English history- just conjecture.