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William Thomas Wells, better known as Bombardier Billy Wells (31 August 1889 – 12 June 1967), was an Englishheavyweight boxer. Fighting under the name "Bombardier Billy Wells", he was British and British Empire Champion from 1911 until 1919, defending his title fourteen times. In 1911 he became the first Heavyweight to win the Lonsdale Belt, which had been introduced for British champions at all weights in 1909.
Wells, who was 6ft 3in (1.91m) and was between 182 and 192lb (83 and 87kg), fought with an orthodox style.
Early life and army service
Wells was born on 31 August 1887 at 250 Cable Street in east London. He was baptised at St George in the East on 25 September that year. His parents were William Thomas Wells, a musician, and Emily Rhoda Wells, formerly Farrier. They had nine children, of whom Wells was the eldest of five boys. The 1891 census recorded him, aged three, living with his parents and younger brother Alfred in St George in the East. By 1901, the family had moved to Mile End Old Town, where his father was listed as a music-hall musician.
Wells entered Ratcliff Broad Street School in Shadwell on 9 January 1899. He and Alfred took part in a gymnastics display at Broad Street Boys' Club in 1901, and their father taught music there. The historian Stan Shipley suggests that an instructor named Chambers gave Wells his first boxing lessons at the club. Wells began boxing for the club in his final year at school and continued until he joined the army. After leaving school, he worked as a messenger for the Eastern Telegraph Company, his first job.
He enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery in the summer of 1906. After his first few months at a depot in Dover, his company was sent to north-western India, where he joined the 6th Mountain Battery at Rawalpindi. He began boxing for the army after the battery marched to Quetta, winning both the novice and open competitions at the divisional boxing tournament.
At Poona in March 1909, Wells beat three opponents to win the All-India heavyweight championship. Before the next championships at Lucknow, he spent a month training with Jim Maloney, a professional boxer employed to train soldiers. Wells won three further contests at Lucknow. During his service in India, he was promoted to bombardier.
On Maloney's advice, Wells bought his discharge from the army for £21(1910)(equivalent to £2,919orUS$3,730.76 in 2024). He left India ahead of Maloney and arrived at Southampton aboard the troopship Passy in April 1910. Maloney later returned to London and became his manager.
Professional boxing career
British title
After returning to England in 1910, Wells boxed an exhibition with Gunner Joe Mills at a gentlemen's club in London's West End. That summer, he knocked out Gunner McMurray at the army garrison in Shoeburyness and Corporal Brown in the third round at Wonderland in Whitechapel. After the Brown bout, Wells gave twice-nightly sparring exhibitions at the Euston Palace and Canterbury music halls.
According to John Harding, Wells's contract with the promoter Hugh D. McIntosh guaranteed him top-of-the-bill status after no more than a dozen contests. McIntosh used King's Hall in Southwark as his base while preparing to stage contests at Olympia. At King's Hall, Wells stopped Sergeant Sunshine in six rounds, Dan Voyles in ten and Seaman Fred Parsons in a little over two minutes. He suffered his first professional defeat in January 1911, when Gunner Moir knocked him out in the third round at Olympia. McIntosh billed the contest as the heavyweight championship of Great Britain. Harding attributes most of the damage to Moir's body punches.
The historian Andrew Horrall connects Wells's rise with the growing prominence of boxers as music-hall celebrities. His defeat by Moir was filmed, and his stage appearances promoted him as a future champion. During the series of London contests leading up to his Lonsdale Belt victory, Wells trained with a bodybuilder and received extensive coverage in the boxing and athletic press.
In March, Wells outpointed Dan "Porky" Flynn over twenty rounds. Shipley regards this victory as establishing his claim to challenge Iron Hague. The National Sporting Club (NSC) offered Wells a contest against Hague for the first heavyweight Lonsdale Belt. Harding notes that the purse was among the smallest offered for a belt contest, below that for the bantamweight title and less than the money put up as side stakes.
On 24 April 1911, Wells knocked Hague out in the sixth round at the NSC in Covent Garden, winning the club's British heavyweight title and becoming the first holder of the heavyweight Lonsdale Belt. A. F. Bettinson and B. Bennison recorded that Hague went down three times in the final round. Afterwards, Lord Lonsdale and the assembled members congratulated Wells.
Proposed Jack Johnson contest
The promoter James White arranged for Wells to meet Jack Johnson at the Empress Hall, Earl's Court, on 2 October 1911. Advertised as a world heavyweight championship contest, the bout was scheduled for twenty three-minute rounds, with a purse of £8,000(1911)(equivalent to £1.11 millionorUS$1.42 million in 2024). It formed part of the international search for a "white hope" to defeat Johnson, the first black world heavyweight champion.
The Baptist minister Frederick Brotherton Meyer and Charles Brown of the National Free Church Council led a public campaign against the bout. They condemned it as brutal and objected to its racial implications. The campaign drew support from churchmen, local authorities, politicians and sporting figures. The London County Council warned the owners of Earl's Court that staging the contest could jeopardise the renewal of the venue's licence.
The dispute also concerned the unsettled legal status of professional boxing. The historian Matthew Taylor argues that the emphasis on race in accounts of the proposed fight has sometimes obscured the related legal and social objections to commercial prizefighting. The Home Office deemed the contest illegal, describing it as a breach of the peace and contrary to the interests of the nation and empire. On 28 September, the freeholders of Earl's Court obtained a High Court injunction preventing the contest under the terms of the venue's lease. White agreed not to stage it in the British Isles or other British territories, after which the Home Office dropped its proceedings.
The historian Theresa Runstedtler argues that the Wells–Johnson case provided a precedent for banning later interracial contests. She also links it to the development of the colour bar that excluded non-white boxers from British title contests until 1947.
Championship years
In December 1911, Wells met the South African boxer Fred Storbeck at the NSC in a contest billed for the Empire heavyweight title. The prize money was £1,250(1911)(equivalent to £173,750orUS$222,068.97 in 2024), with side stakes of £500(1911)(equivalent to £69,500orUS$88,800 in 2024). Storbeck shook Wells in the fifth round, but Wells recovered and knocked him out in the eleventh.
In May 1912, Wells travelled to New York with Maloney and his brother Sid. He lost to Al Palzer at Madison Square Garden, then knocked out Tom Kennedy in eight rounds three weeks later. He returned to the United States with his wife in 1913. A proposed bout with Luther McCarty failed to materialise, and he instead faced Gunboat Smith, who knocked him out in the second round at Madison Square Garden.
Wells's first contest with Georges Carpentier at Ghent, 1 June 1913
Wells met Georges Carpentier twice in 1913. He was the favourite for their first contest, at Ghent on 1 June, although Carpentier had fought 27 times in 1911–1912 compared with Wells's seven. Carpentier knocked him out in the fourth round. Bettinson and Bennison later argued that Wells's shortcomings had contributed more to Carpentier's reputation in Britain than the Frenchman's own qualities. Before their return contest, Wells stopped Packey Mahoney, Pat O'Keeffe and Gunner Moir in a ten-week period. The three bouts lasted a total of 33 rounds.
The return took place at the NSC on 8 December for the European heavyweight championship, with Eugene Corri as referee. Wells trained at Selsey Bill, where O'Keeffe was among his assistants. Shipley suggests that he may have been fitter and better trained than ever before. Carpentier moved inside Wells's long reach and attacked his body, knocking him out after 73 seconds. The author Kasia Boddy discusses the defeat as part of a debate about British and French boxing styles.
Bettinson and Bennison wrote that the return had been awaited with "feverish impatience", but judged Wells "a beaten man before hostilities began". Wells's later accounts placed different emphasis on his state of mind. In 1914, he recalled expecting Carpentier to rush him and being unsettled when the Frenchman instead waited calmly in the centre of the ring. In 1920, he described being nervous before the contest.
On 16 March 1914, Wells and O'Keeffe boxed before King George V at a 2nd Life Guards tournament in the riding school at Albany Street Barracks. Nearly 1,500 officers and men attended. The Times stated that there was no record of a king of England having previously been present at the ringside. On 30 June, Wells knocked out Colin Bell in the second round at Olympia in a contest billed for the British Empire championship. Charles B. Cochran promoted the event, for which 10,000 seats were available, as "People's Night".
Wells was the NSC's recognised British heavyweight champion from 1911 to 1919 and made fourteen title defences. According to Harding, by the outbreak of war he had held the title for the required three years and beaten all credible opponents. The NSC offered him the Lonsdale Belt outright on the strength of his victories in 1911 and 1913, but Wells insisted on securing ownership in the ring. He did so in December 1916 by stopping Dan Voyles in two rounds. Writing in 1922, Bettinson and Bennison noted that the heavyweight Lonsdale Belt had been contested only four times, with Wells winning three of those contests. They attributed the small number to a shortage of able heavyweights and the financial demands of the division's leading men.
First World War service
Wells was criticised by the press for continuing to box while Carpentier served in the French air force. His brother Alfred, a Rifle Brigade reservist serving with the British Expeditionary Force, was killed on 23 September 1914, aged 25. Wells did not re-enlist until May 1915. Shipley notes that his explanations for the delay changed, but centred on supporting his wife, child, mother and two teenage brothers, and the boxing income he would lose by enlisting.
Wells also took part in wartime charity events. At Ilford, he sparred with O'Keeffe in aid of the Belgian Fund. Corri recalled that the exhibition came close to a genuine fight, prompting O'Keeffe to shout, "Stop it, Billy–I'm not the Kaiser!"
In March 1915, Frank Moran knocked Wells out in the tenth round at the London Opera House. Wells re-enlisted in May while preparing to face Dick Smith at the end of the month. He was promoted to sergeant before Christmas and boxed four times in 1916.
Percy Webb, who trained with the 7th (Reserve) Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment at Bovington Camp in 1916, recalled Wells's work as a gymnastic instructor in a 1975 Imperial War Museums oral history interview. Wells took the recruits for physical training, including early-morning runs of four or five miles around the camp. Webb described him as "very regimental": one of the men off parade, but strict on it. He remembered seeing Wells order four men to throw a reluctant recruit over the vaulting horse. Webb was himself put into the ring against a man he knew to be an experienced boxer. When the first punch bloodied Webb's nose, Wells immediately stopped the bout.
Wells went to France in 1917 and did not box professionally again until after the armistice. He served on the Physical Training and Bayonet Fighting Staff and was attached to an Army headquarters. Shipley suggests that his duties included visiting camps to organise bayonet training and physical education, discussing recreation with officers and non-commissioned officers, and refereeing boxing tournaments. Wells also served as an instructor at St Pol, where the Physical Training and Bayonet School had moved in early 1917. The school trained officers and non-commissioned officers to teach physical training and bayonet fighting in their own units. That year, he entered the 2nd Division Boxing Tournament, where Private Fraser described him as "skilful" but "not rugged enough".
Another soldier who received boxing lessons from Wells was Joseph Pickard, a private in the Northumberland Fusiliers. Pickard was wounded in the leg in October 1917 and convalesced at Trouville. In a 1986 Imperial War Museums oral history interview, he recalled being offered a choice between a route march and a boxing lesson. He chose boxing, and Wells showed the men how to defend themselves. Pickard described him as "one of the nicest fellas" he had met.
In June 1918, a British Boxing Board of Control was announced from the NSC's premises. A voting college of all past and present Lonsdale Belt holders selected Wells, Jim Driscoll and O'Keeffe as the first professionals to serve on the board. The three also shared responsibility for administering the newly established Professional Boxers' Benevolent Fund, which assisted former professionals who had fallen on hard times.
By December 1918, Wells had reached the rank of company sergeant major. That month, the Imperial Services Boxing Association staged the British Empire and American Services Boxing Tournament over two days at the Royal Albert Hall. Although the entrants were professionals, the contests were limited to three rounds and decided by three judges. Wells outpointed Leading Seaman Powell, Private Eddie McGoorty and Sergeant Joe Beckett to win the heavyweight competition. The British Army team won the King's Trophy. George V was unable to attend, so Prince Albert presented the trophy on his behalf and conveyed a message from him. The Journal reported that this was the first time George V had accorded boxing his patronage.
↑Shipley's bout table gives the date as 24 April 1911. Bettinson and Bennison place the contest towards the end of February.
↑Professional boxing was not governed by a single international authority during Wells's career. The NSC systematised British championships through the Lonsdale Belt from 1909, but rules, weight divisions and methods of allocating championships continued to differ between countries. The International Boxing Union sought to become a world federation, but its ambitions were gradually restricted to Europe.
↑Shipley 1993, pp.15–16. sfn error: no target: CITEREFShipley1993 (help)
↑"1891 England Census entry for William Wells". The National Archives; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891; class RG 12; piece 287; folio 60; page 36; schedule 265. Retrieved 17 July 2026– via Ancestry.co.uk.
↑"1901 England Census entry for William Thomas Wells". The National Archives; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901; class RG 13; piece 328; folio 108; page 40; schedule 330. Retrieved 17 July 2026– via Ancestry.co.uk.
12"Interview with Percy Webb". Imperial War Museums. 20 March 1975. Reel 3. Sound 578. Archived from the original on 28 July 2026. Retrieved 27 July 2026.
↑Shipley 1993, pp.140–142. sfn error: no target: CITEREFShipley1993 (help)
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