James William Carruthers (5 July 1929 – 15 August 1990) was an Australian boxer, who became world champion in the

bantamweight Bantamweight is a weight class in combat sports. For boxing, the range is above and up to . In kickboxing, a bantamweight fighter generally weighs between . In MMA, bantamweight is . The name for the class is derived from bantam chickens. Bra ...

division. Jimmy was the 2009 Inductee for 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 ...

Veterans category.

Amateur career

Carruthers's boxing career started as an Australian representative at the 1948 Summer Olympics in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. In his first-round match of the bantamweight competition, he fought

Fred Daigle Fred Daigle (born 9 September 1930) is a Canadian boxer. He competed in the men's bantamweight event at the 1948 Summer Olympics The 1948 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XIV Olympiad and also known as London 1948) were an int ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

and won on points. He defeated

Arnoldo Parés Arnoldo Parés (born 1922) is an Argentine boxer who competed in the 1948 Summer Olympics in the bantamweight, he beat Vic Toweel Victor "Vic" Anthony Toweel (12 January 1928 – 15 August 2008) was a South African boxer and former undi ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, t ...

in his second match. However, he had sustained an eye injury during his bout with Parés, and had to withdraw from the quarter-final match with the eventual gold medalist Tibor Csík of

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...

.Jimmy Carruthers
. sports-reference.com

Professional career

Carruthers joined the professional ranks in 1950, and was an immediate success. By then, he was being managed by Dr. Jim McGirr, and trained by "Silent" Bill McConnell. He won the Australian Bantamweight title in 1951 and then the British Commonwealth and Bantamweight Championship of the World the following year. Carruthers became Australia's first universally recognised boxing World Champion. Great Australians of the past—including

Young Griffo Albert Griffiths (1 January 1871 – 10 December 1927), better known as Young Griffo, was a World Featherweight boxing champion from 1890 to 1892, and according to many sources, one of the first boxing world champions in any class. '' Ring'' ...

Mick King Mick King (1905 – 15 March 1961) was an Irish sportsperson. He played hurling with his local club Castlegar and with the Galway senior inter-county team from 1923 until 1935. In 2000, King was posthumously named on the Galway Hurling Team ...

, and

Les Darcy James Leslie Darcy (28 October 189524 May 1917) was an Australian boxer. He was a middleweight, but held the Australian Heavyweight Championship title at the same time. Les Darcy was the 2003 Inductee for the Australian National Boxing Hall ...

—had all won world titles, but they had not received international acceptance at the time of winning their respective crowns. After defending his newly won World bantamweight title against

Vic Toweel Victor "Vic" Anthony Toweel (12 January 1928 – 15 August 2008) was a South African boxer and former undisputed World bantamweight champion. He was the first South African to hold a world title. Personal Victor Anthony Toweel was born on ...

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

, and then against the American Henry "Pappy" Gault in Sydney, it was found that Carruthers was carrying a 30-foot-long

tapeworm Eucestoda, commonly referred to as tapeworms, is the larger of the two subclasses of flatworms in the class Cestoda (the other subclass is Cestodaria). Larvae have six posterior hooks on the scolex (head), in contrast to the ten-hooked Cestod ...

. He was matched for a world title bout against the New Zealand Bantamweight Champion Lyn Philp. For unclear reasons the fight never went ahead. After a non-title bout in Sydney, and a further title defence against

Chamroen Songkitrat Chamroen Songkitrat (Thai: จำเริญ ทรงกิตรัตน์), born as Samroeng Srimadi, was a Thai boxer and policeman. Songkitrat was a champion Muay Thai fighter in Thailand with over 50 fights before becoming an orthodox bo ...

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populatio ...

, Carruthers retired on 16 May 1954. Among the fighters he defeated were South African Vic Toweel (twice); Pappy Gault; Bobby Sinn and Chamroen Songkitrat. He made a brief comeback in Melbourne and Sydney in the early sixties in non-title fights, with his last fight in Wellington New Zealand in 1962 where he lost to Jimmy Cassidy.

Personal

He worked on the Sydney docks as a wharf labourer in the 1950s. Carruthers was married to Myra (née Hamilton) until his death and is survived by four children - Boyd, Ginna, Dimiette and Lukas. During the 1950s he owned the colourful Bells Hotel in Sydney's

Woolloomooloo Woolloomooloo ( ) is a harbourside, inner-city eastern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Woolloomooloo is 1.5 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney. It is in ...

. After that he had a number of businesses, including several vegetarian takeaway and juice bars in Sydney. In his last years Carruthers suffered from

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...

and

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

. He died on 15 August 1990. In 1995 he was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame.

Professional boxing record

References

External links