Family album is a knockout

The album belonged to a Mr Brian Douglass of Boroughbridge Road – and shortly after we published the article, a number of family members, including Brian’s wife Diane and his younger brothers Alfred and Peter got in touch.

Brian had sadly passed away, so we returned the album to Diane. Then Peter, from Poppleton, and Alfred, from Tadcaster, brought in a family album of their own to share with us.

And what an album.

The Douglasses, it turns out, are descended on their mother’s side from Alfred Boulton, who the family believe was York’s first Hansom cab driver, and on their father’s side from legendary publican, entertainer and boxing promoter William Douglass.

First, to Mr Boulton. He was Peter and Alfred’s maternal grandfather. Born in 1884 in School Street, St Margaret’s, York, the brothers believe he was the first man in York – the city in which the Hansom cab was invented – to drive such a cab.

There is a wonderful photograph of him in the family album, put together by Peter’s wife Ann, which shows him sitting perched on the back of his cab, whip in hand and smart bowler hat on head.

Another photograph shows him driving a carriage with a group of friends in the back.

He later became the driver of a motorised taxi cab and also, possibly, of an open-topped motor bus.

Photographs show him with both vehicles.

The same album also contains some wonderful photographs and cuttings about William Douglass, Peter and Alfred’s paternal grandfather.

William was born in 1879 in Peasholm, York. He married Louisa Train in York in 1900, at the age of 21, and he and his wife became licensees of first the City Arms Hotel and then, in 1903, the Alexandra Hotel, in Market Street, York. They ran the pub for 34 years.

The Alexandra was also a concert hall where William would arrange nightly talent competitions, including singers and stand-up comedians. A well-known Yorkshire humourist speaker, he wasn’t above doing a turn himself.

It is as a boxing promoter that he is best remembered today, however. He once had no fewer than 34 boxers under his wing, staging fights in the Exhibition Buildings behind the city art gallery which were later destroyed by fire in the war.

One cutting preserved in the family album, written by a journalist by the name of Richard Ulyatt and printed in a local newspaper on April 14, 1962, provides a colourful portrait of him.

“There are few promoters left of the character of the late Will Douglass, who 30 years ago used to stage regular tournaments almost within a stone’s throw of York Minster,” Mr Ulyatt wrote.

“Ladies and genmen’, the gangling Will would bellow through a microphone which was unnecessary even when it worked. I ’ave the honour to hoffer you a hexibition bout of six rounds between….

“Into the ring would climb pair after pair of boxers, battling away for three, six, eight or, when Frank Fowler, the local champion, and Theo Sas, of Belgium, fought, of 12 rounds.

“Afterwards, boxers, trainers, seconds, managers and officials would be invited to the Douglass hostelry in the heart of York.

There Mr Douglass had a huge meal waiting. The long trestle table was almost weighed down supporting pies, hams, sirloins and the good things boxers in training had been doing without.”

William’s son George, who as a boy featured on a card put into packets of cigarettes sent to troops during the First World War, went onto become a boxing promoter after him. He also ran the Greyhound Pub in Spurriergate.

He married Nellie Boulton, daughter of Alfred Boulton the Hansom Cab driver, in 1932 and became the father of Brian, Carol, Alfred and Peter.
 

After the Hansom cab, Alfred Boulton became a taxi driver

...and also, possibly, of an open-topped motor bus

Will Douglass, an unnamed referee, the next man is thought to be Frank Fowler  and George Douglass relax in the pub

George Douglass standing and Bill Douglass