One recent donation to the John Oxley Library is a collection of Queensland boxing and golf photographs and papers from the 1950s.

The photographs include images of the Queensland Amateur Boxing and Wrestling team of 1951, the Queensland Amateur Boxing team at the Australian Championships in Perth in 1961 and a portrait of Australian champion, Bobby Simm from Queensland.

The collection also includes a programme for the Australian Amateur Boxing and Wrestling Championships held at the Brisbane Stadium in 1951, which has been autographed by the participating boxers.

Other fascinating items from the collection are three score books used by referee Les Parker for boxing matches held at Brisbane's Festival Hall.  Parker was an Australian amateur welterweight champion in the 1950s and a referee at Festival Hall from its opening in 1959.

The collection also contains photographs of Queensland Women golfers from the 1950s.

The Queensland Ladies' Golf Team were competing in Adelaide and won the interstate contest for the Gladys Hay Memorial Cup.  This was Queensland's first win since the start of the competition in 1933.

Other items include typewritten histories of boxing in Queensland by John Garde, a programme for the 1982 Commonwealth Games boxing events held in Brisbane and a boxing contract between manager, Tommy Burns, and boxer Rod Litzow from 1957.  The collection may be viewed at the John Oxley Library (Acc: 29001, Box 17511 O/S A3)

Lynn Meyers - Original Materials Librarian, State Library of Queensland