Two memories of his Aunt Dora (and her second husband, William Webb) from My Dad:

Aunt Dora and her husband lived in Pimlico. They used to fight a lot. Sometimes, when visitors came, they would be offered a cup of tea, but in beer-mugs - all the cups had got broken, in a fight, the night before !



My Dad mentioned, in passing, that he had an uncle, who was a well-known boxer.

One day, in an idle moment, I entered "Coleman boxer england" in the Google-Search-Engine and examined some of the 90+ results. Apart from a lot of adverts for "Nick Coleman's famous boxer shorts", I also found a Henry Boxer, who owned an art gallery and had had an exhibition of Joe Coleman's paintings !!!

Further searching turned up an interview with Joe Coleman. The interviewer, commenting on a scar on Joe's chin, said "It makes you look like your grandfather, the boxer ...". I was getting quite excited at this, but then the next reference to Joe Coleman said ...

"... born in Newark, U.S.A ..."

So then I had the following fantasy:
Garry's uncle, or one of his uncles's children, emigrates to the U.S.A. and one of his descendents, named Joe, becomes a painter ....

Later, when I "found" Garry's Aunt Dora in the Census, he then remembered, that it wasn't his uncle, but his cousin, Aunt Dora's son, who was a boxer. He fought for the army, and one day, in the Thomas à Beckett Pub, which had a boxing ring upstairs, he took on, and beat, a well known boxer.

The cousin later moved to Blandford, Dorset.
(Coincidently, on Hessie Charlotte's mother's side of the family, the Bensons originally came from Blandford !)

Updated: October 2013
I am now in contact with three descendants of Henry Frederick Coleman and Rose Elvina Breeze .
... and one of them is the boxer's daughter !!