Henry William – Harry – Mallin (1892–1969) is one of those London blue plaque recipients who is not a household name but probably ought to be. At the Olympics in 1924, he became the first boxer to successfully defend a title, taking the gold at middleweight in Paris to add to the medal he had won at Antwerp four years earlier.

Mallin was the first boxer to achieve a double gold – a feat not repeated until 1956, and not by a British boxer until Nicola Adams’ successful title defence in 2016. Mallin was also British amateur middleweight boxing champion for five consecutive years from 1919 – a record that has never been bettered.

Mallin’s Parisian triumph was controversial. His quarter-final opponent, a local favourite named Roger Brousse, was dubiously judged to have won on points, despite Mallin showing the referee bite marks on his arm and torso. A Swedish official complained and the result was overturned. Back home, the Daily Sketch accused Brousse of ‘sampling the unroasted beef of old England’.

Despite restive crowds in subsequent rounds, Mallin kept his cool and out-pointed his team-mate Jack Eliot in the final. He then retired from the sport, undefeated in more than 350 amateur contests. Once dubbed ‘the professor of the sweet science’, he was a thoughtful boxer who scored few knockouts and relied on technique.

Mallin went on to coach the British boxing teams at the Olympics of 1936 and 1952. He also had the distinction of delivering the BBC’s first ever live television sports commentary – on an England vs Ireland boxing match held at Alexandra Palace in February 1937. Sadly, no recording survives.

By day, Mallin was an officer of the Metropolitan Police, from which he retired in 1952 after 37 years. His blue plaque marks a former section house – no-frills police accommodation – at 105 Regency Street, Pimlico, where he lived from 1923 until the Second World War. Mallin was born into a working-class family in Hoxton and raised in Hackney Wick. However, none of his earlier homes survive, nor does the Eton Manor Boys’ Club, where he honed his boxing skills. Ironically, its site is now occupied by the Lea Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre, originally built for the 2012 London Olympics.

Words: Howard Spencer 

Illustration: Mark Thomas