Larry Foley
Laurence 'Larry' Foley (12 December 1849 – 12 July 1917) was an Australian middleweight boxer. An exceptional boxing instructor, his students included American champions Peter Jackson, and Tommy Burns, the incomparable English-born triple weight class champion Bob Fitzsimmons and Australian champion Mike Dooley. Due to his success as a boxing champion and internationally acclaimed instructor, and for introducing his country to the modern Queensberry Rules, he is often referred to as the "Father of Australian Boxing". Early life Foley was born to an Irish schoolmaster, Patrick, and his wife Mary (née Downs) in Bathurst, New South Wales on 12 December 1849. He was baptised a few years later on 2 May 1852 in Penrith. At three his family moved to Sydney, and at fourteen he moved to Wollongong as servant to a Roman Catholic priest with the expectation that he would join the priesthood. This never happened and instead, he returned to Sydney where at the age of 20, he worked as a building labourer and eventually as a sub-forman and building contractor. In Sydney, he joined a street-fighting gang in his youth, often fighting members of a rival Protestant group. His first fight, lasting seventy-one rounds, was believed to