TOUGH times called for tough men, and The Sydney Cornstalk, Frank ‘Paddy’ Slavin was as tough as they come.
The champion bare-knuckle fighter was born in 1862, the third of seven children born to Irish farm workers Michael and Julia Slavin on the Cardoness estate.
Known as Brecon, the area was just north of present-day Vacy.
Like so many in those days, Paddy grew up in poverty.
The family got by on meagre wages, living in a dirt-floor slab hut with none of the amenities we have today.
Earning money by fighting was a great opportunity for a young man from Vacy.
In his young days he was a successful local bare-knuckle fighter before taking his skills to the goldfields in adjacent valleys of Stewarts Brook, Moonan Flat, the Denison, and Copeland.
Winning bouts against all comers, Slavin soon earned a reputation as unbeatable.
A champion axeman, Slavin was employed as a timber worker and pole-splitter.
But it was boxing that took him to Sydney and beyond, including west to Kalgoorlie.
Professional coaching in Sydney took the 1.8 metres tall, 86-kilo Slavin from a rough-and-tumble bush fighter to a hard-punching heavyweight boxer.
After beating both Australian and New Zealand challengers to become the Australian heavyweight champion, Slavin travelled to England and Europe, winning the All-England bare-knuckle championship along the way.
Next came America, where he again took on the best to be declared the world heavyweight champion.
About this time, bare-knuckle fighting was officially outlawed for championships.
Slavin moved to Canada, where he worked on the Transcontinental railway, drawn north by the Klondike gold rushes.
With the outbreak of World War I, he enlisted in the Western Scottish Battalion at the age of 53.
He fought in Europe before suffering from shell shock in 1917 after enduring 57 days in the bloody trenches.
Frank Slavin lived in obscurity in Vancouver BC, until he died in 1929.
Today, he’s remembered in Vacy with a plaque in the cairn on the village green and more recently through an adjacent information board.
Paddy Slavin… a tough man for tough times.
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