Also known as Jack Harrison
Wrestling Heritage welcomes memories, further information and corrections
We had little information about the eldest of the Beech dynasty until Heritage members Ron Historyo and Paul O’Connor discovered that we had known him all along, listed on Heritage at the time as Fighting Jack Harrison.
Billy was born in Biddulph, Staffordshire, the eldest son of a coal miner, Jeremiah, and his wife Minnie. Two years later the family grew to include a second son, Isaac, who went on to wrestle as Ike Beech.
Billy was discovered catch wrestling by Ron Historyo at Atherton Football Club in 1912. The match, against Billy Nally, was reported as a closely fought contest between two good novices in the 9 stones division. Although Billy Beech was the more aggressive of the two it was Nally that took the match which lasted almost an hour and a half.
By the time All-In wrestling was introduced in December, 1930 Billy was around forty years old. That’s quite an age for a change in direction and adapt to a new professional style, but Billy did it and was around for most of the decade. One newspaper report, from November 1938, says that the crowd affectionately named him “Grand-pa.” Grand-pa or not he knocked out his opponent, Jock Tyson, in the sixth round.
On 12th December, 1933 we found him wrestling Bob McGregor at the Runcorn Baths Assembly Hall in a match described as the Lightweight Championship of England.
Billy also used the pseudonym Jack Harrison, often prefixed with Fighting, Wild or Mad. By 1935 he was billed as “Lightweight Champion of the World” and the “British Junior Lightweight Championship.”
Only in the surreal reality of pro wrestling could we find the erstwhile Northern Middleweight Champion billed as “Light Heavyweight Champion of the World” in 1935, a few weeks later defending the “British Junior Lightweight Championship,” and later in the same year “holder of a light heavyweight championship belt given by the West Houghton Nursing Association.” All wrestling nonsense, of course, but a clear indication that this busy worker of the 1930s was an accomplished wrestler with a great deal of skill.
Billy Beech died in 1959.
12675
Wrestling Heritage 