Name

Frank Dove (1 North 1915)

CLAIM TO FAME

Whilst studying at Merton College, Oxford, he boxed for the university and also for Great Britain at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics. He continued to box while practicing as a barrister and was still winning ABA divisional cruiserweight championships in 1945 by which time he was 48.

PROFILE

Frank Dove, who came to Cranleigh in 1910 (unusually joining at half-term) and left in July 1915, was one of the first coloured pupils at the School. His mother came from Sussex, his father from Sierra Leone where he was a highly respected barrister. He was a successful sportsman at Cranleigh and was in the 1st XI for football and cricket and was Hon Secretary of both sports.  At that time Cranleigh did not play hockey or rugby so those were the two major sports.

He was also one of the two gymnasts who represented Cranleigh at the Public Schools Gymnastic Competition at Aldershot – at the time a major event which Cranleigh had won five times, most recently in 1913 – where the school finished third overall.  The school magazine said he was “a versatile member of the community both academically and athletically”.

On leaving he was accepted to Merton College, Oxford to read law but was called up in 1916 and joined the Tank Corps where initially he served as a dispatch rider and won the Military Medal in 1917.  By the time of the Armistice he had joined the RAF. After being demobbed he returned to Oxford.  While there he boxed for the university and also for Great Britain at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics. He continued to box while practicing as a barrister and was still winning ABA divisional cruiserweight championships in 1945 by which time he was 48.  He died on February 10, 1957 after being involved in a traffic accident in Wolverhampton.

His story featured in Black Poppies – Britain’s Black Community and the Great War which was published in 2014.