“Excellence in Boxing”
James “Tancy” Lee (1882-1941)
British Flyweight Champion (1915-16)
British Featherweight Champion (1917-1919)
Scottish Bantamweight Champion (1917)
James “Tancy” Lee was born in 1882 in Leith, then a separate town from Edinburgh. Tancy who inherited this unusual name from his father, is the holder of several Scottish Boxing firsts. The teak tough man from Leith is the only Caledonian Boxing Champ to box for a title on Christmas Day beIng knocked out in round 17 in Paris, France for the European Featherweight crown by Frenchman Louis de Ponthieu on 25th December 1919.
Lee is also the very first Scottish outright winner of a Lonsdale belt; the only Caledonian ring Champion to second his own nephew, George McKenzie, to winning the same British 9 stone title in 1923 that “Tancy” had won in 1917. They are the only Scottish uncle and nephew to have won the same British title. ‘Tancy” also coached both his McKenzie nephews, George and James to become Olympic boxing medal winners; George winning Olympic bronze at Antwerp in 1920, while James won flyweight silver at Paris in 1924.
The key year in Lee’s boxing life was 1908 when he was entranced by an exhibition that Welsh ring master “Peerless” Jim Driscoll gave for charity at Edinburgh’s Waverley market. This fired up the then 26 year old Leith labourer, Lee; to seriously take up boxing as an amateur, “Tancy” conveniently forgot to mention the 30 odd boxing booth scraps he had up until then to help feed his growing family.
After Leither Lee tore through Britain’s amateur flyweights to win the British A.B.A. 8 stone crown in 1908 in London and win a silver cup worth ten guineas, a newspaper leaked the fact that it had traced 38 booth bouts for Tancy, exposing him as an undercover professional boxer.
Consequently, British A.B.A. boss, Tom Calver demanded the trophy back, which Lee duly returned but, to this day, “Tancy” Lee remains the only British amateur A.B.A. Champion to have had 38 pro bouts before winning an A.B.A. title!
So, in 1908 “Tancy” became a bona fide pro under the management of future First World War casualty, Frank Munro. One respected boxing writer who saw lee perform regularly in this period was Englishman James Butler. He described the Leither’s ring style thus … Tancy “was a fighter… Lee refused to allow correctness of style to hamper his natural desire to go in and fight” from the waist up he might have been a middleweight… Deep chested, broad shouldered, magnificently biceped… tearing into action he was even more terrifying…” However, as great Airdrie Bantamweight, Alex Lafferty, was to prove, even at this stage of his career Lee was not invincible.
Having received the financial backing of Edinburgh business tycoon, Fred Lumley, (himself the only Englishman to win three consecutive Scottish Amateur Lightweight Titles between 1891 and 1893). Tancy was leading by the proverbial mile on points against Lafferty on 18th April 1911 in Edinburgh’s Olympia skating rink when he walked onto a sharp Lafferty left hook to the stomach and was halted in the 13th round.
Nothing if not resilient, Lee bounced back with a run of wins that led to the Leither being invited in august 1914 to box Welsh miner, Percy Jones, for the British Flyweight title and Lonsdale belt at the national Sporting club in London’s Covent Garden. But disappointment awaited “Tancy” and his backer Lumley on arrival in the English capital. Jones inability to make the 8 stone title weight led to the bout (won by Lee) being a non-title catchweights bout. Undeterred, Lee returned to London to stop New Cross Londoner and former World Flyweight Champion, Bill Ladbury inside eight rounds on his own New Cross turf, also in 1914.
So the scene was set for huge underdog, James “Tancy” Lee to challenge the legendary Welsh Champion, Jimmy Wilde, in January 1915, for the Welsh Wizard’s British flyweight crown and Lonsdale belt.
Numerous English boxing scribes, over the years, have claimed that Wilde was a flu’ victim that January night against Lee at the London N.S.C. A claim the Leith man rubbished in an interview in the Edinburgh Evening News in February 1922 when “Tancy” pointed out that London bookies had made Wilde a 5-2 favourite before ring action commenced, prompting Lee to ask “when did bookies ever install flu victims as favourites in boxing matches?” Whatever the truth of the matter, Wilde’s manager, Teddy Lewis threw in the towel in round 17 and Scotland had her first ever Lonsdale belt winner. True, Lee’s tenure as British 8 stone Champion only lasted seven months, until 18th October 1915 when he lost it by 16th round stoppage to Plymouth’s Joe Symonds, no disgrace when you consider that veteran of 864 bouts, Jimmy Wilde, nominated Symonds as his hardest opponent ever.
After losing a June 1916 return bout with Jimmy Wilde by 11th round stoppage Lee took time out from boxing for 12 months. A break forced on him, in part, by the sudden death, from flu, of his first wife and mother of his five children. Given such a burden of looking after motherless children in those pre-modern welfare state days, Lee’s subsequent achievements as a Featherweight are commendable.
So, on 5th November 1917 Lee produced his own ring fireworks show by dethroning at the N.S.C in London, rock hard miner from Barnsley, Charlie Hardcastle, with a fourth round uppercut that kayoed the Yorkshire man. “Tancy’s” next British title defence was against Londoner Joe Conn who, being 17 years younger than Lee and a known puncher, was installed as firm betting favourite.
Despite breaking his hand in the 5th round, Conn nearly stopped the Leith based champion in round 12 but he was, in turn, dropped several times and halted in round 17.
However, in his last title defence, on 24th February 1919 against Welshman from Tirphil, Danny Morgan (also 17 years his junior), Lee was, by common consent, hugely fortunate to be adjudged a points winner at the N.S.C. event the British trade paper Boxing commented “there has been a happy ending after all for Lee. Even if everything else had been outraged to secure it…” still, the Leith boxer was now the first Scottish boxer to win a Lonsdale belt outright.
However, in 1920, after losing to England’s Mike Honeyman in a British title fight, and a loss to Frenchman August Grassi in Edinburgh the following year, saw the Leith ring warrior retire. Until his last ring appearance on 2 April 1926, when he fought one Johnny Seeley to a 10 round draw in Edinburgh, “Tancy” was 44 years old.
Despite becoming a famed ring coach with the Leith Victoria club, tragedy (which had cost lee his wife in 1917) was to ensure there was no happy ending for this most popular of men who counted Sir Harry Lauder among his ringside fans. In 1941, during the Edinburgh wartime blackout, James “Tancy” Lee was mown down by a bus and killed. By bizarre coincidence his two Olympic boxing medal winning nephews (George and James McKenzie) died tragically that same year.
Incidentally, “Tancy” and old Welsh opponent, Jimmy Wilde were reunited in the ring again 20th May 1938, when Wilde was seconding the Glasgow boxer he managed (Frank McCudden), against southpaw ex-world Featherweight Champion from Cincinnati, Freddie Miller, at Edinburgh’s Waverley market. Lee seconded Miller to a 12 round points win over Glasgow’s McCudden after old adversaries Jimmy Wilde and Lee were introduced into the ring before the fight.
Compiled by Brian Donald
