James Woodall Snr

Jimmy “Boxall” (James Woodall Snr) was prepared to fight them all, even other members of the Battling Boxall Brothers.

James, Paddy and Arthur (Artie) Woodall achieved notoriety as boxers in the 1930’s and 1940’s. They were named the Boxall Brothers because they would box anyone and everyone after they began training as teenagers at a gym in Plain Street, East Perth.

Jimmy had been WA Amateur Featherweight champion in 1933, Lightweight champion in 1941 and Interservices Welterweight champion in 1942, before winning the WA Professional Welterweight crown in 1943.

Though his brother Paddy was the first inductee in the WA Boxing Hall of Fame, Jimmy was rumoured to have beaten him the only time they ever fought. Jimmy called himself a fighter rather than a boxer. He plunged himself into every match, throwing everything at his opponent. His matches were usually over by the third round, with either a knockout to him or his opponent.

At 29, he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage during a fight and had the last rites read to him by a priest as he lay in hospital. Luck intervened, a British surgeon travelling through Perth was familar with a new procedure of injecting a neddle into the spine to drain fluid from the brain.

In his later years after being a salesman for Boans and a regular speech giver at The Freemasons, Jimmy work along side his son James Jnr in the early days of Statewide Cleaning Supplies.