Fred Williams: Tolaga Bay’s national heavyweight champion

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A GRANDDAUGHTER of Fred Williams, Tolaga Bay's New Zealand heavyweight boxing champion of 1913, has contacted The Gisborne Herald with information about him.

Laura Knight's grandfather was one of the boxers mentioned in a Herald article last week about Bert Lowe, Gisborne's first national heavyweight champion.

Lowe lost his New Zealand title to Williams in the Gisborne Opera House in February 1913, but won it back at the same venue eight months later.

Laura Knight said her grandfather and Lowe were good friends.

Fred Williams was born in Australia in 1882 and served in the Boer War.

He came to New Zealand in 1907 and at Tolaga Bay met the French woman who became his wife.

He later worked as a barber in Hamilton.

Fred Williams died in 1953 and was buried in the services section of a Hamilton cemetery.