Lionel Rose MBE (1948–2011), boxer, was the first Aboriginal Australian to win a world sporting title. Born in Jackson's Track, a small Aboriginal community in Gippsland, Victoria, he took up boxing in his early teens, having been introduced to the sport by his father, Roy, a tent-show fighter. He won the Australian amateur flyweight championship, aged fifteen, in 1963, the day after Roy's death. The eldest of nine, Rose went professional to help support his family, taking out the national bantamweight title in 1966. Aged nineteen, Rose accepted an opportunity to contest the world bantamweight belt in a bout against Mashiko 'Fighting' Harada in Tokyo in February 1968. Rose defeated Harada on points after a fifteen-round fight and returned to Melbourne a national hero. More than 250,000 people turned out to cheer Rose on his return. Having twice defended his world title, Rose was named Australian of the Year (the first Aboriginal person to be so honoured) and ABC Sportsman of the Year for 1968. Rose retired from boxing in 1971, having lost his world title two years previously, but later made a comeback. His boxing career came to a permanent end in 1976, with Rose having won 53 of his 64 fights, twelve of them by knockout. During the early 1970s, Rose recorded several songs, two of which – I Thank You and Please Remember Me – made it into the top ten. Rose died in April 2011 and was accorded a State funeral in Melbourne.
