Eugene Bonner

Eugene Edward Bonner was born in Montréal in August of 1904, one of three children born to George and Maude (née Brown) Bonner, his father was a porter with the Canadian Pacific Railway. He grew up in Montréal and Toronto where he soon became well-known in the local amateur boxing circles, competing under the ring name Gene Clay, after the surname of distant maternal relatives in Montréal. One of the only Black Canadian boxers of his time, in 1923, he was noted as one of the top boxers in his weight class, boxing out of Praestamus, then later Apollo Club in Toronto and competing in matches all over Ontario.

In 1924, he earned a spot on the Canadian Olympic boxing team in the featherweight class and travelled to Paris, but ultimately did not compete in the tournament. He later returned to Ontario and settled in Oakville, continuing in his previous occupation as a porter, then later working as a maintenance worker at a local school. He was later inducted into the Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame. In 1937, he married Elsie Howard; the couple had two daughters, Joan and Donna. One of his daughters, later known as Joan Jones, was a prominent businesswoman and civil rights activist along with her lawyer husband, Rocky, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Eugene Bonner died at the age of 93 in 1997; at the time of his death he was one of the last surviving members of Canada’s 1924 Olympic delegation.