Rugby league great Sir Billy Boston dies aged 92, weeks after wife’s death
Rugby league great Sir Billy Boston dies aged 92, weeks after wife’s death
Daniel SchofieldTue, August 25, 2026 at 10:46 AM UTC
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Billy Boston received a knighthood from King Charles III at Buckingham Palace in 2025 - Aaron Chown/Getty Images
Sir Billy Boston, the first rugby league player to receive a knighthood, has died at the age of 92.
Born in Cardiff in 1934, Boston broke all manner of records and barriers in league after being overlooked by his hometown club in union. He scored an extraordinary 478 tries in 488 games for Wigan. Only Australian Brian Bevan surpassed Boston’s total of 571 tries in top-class league history.
Yet tries alone do not tell the full story of Boston’s legacy. In 1954, he was picked by the Great Britain side that toured Australia and New Zealand, becoming the first black British player to be selected for such a tour.
Boston became the first black British player to be selected to tour with Great Britain - Getty Images
The Welsh Rugby Union confirmed the news of Boston’s death on Tuesday: “Sir Billy Boston, one of the best loved and most iconic figures in the history of Welsh sport, has passed away peacefully at the age of 92.
“The most famous son of Tiger Bay, he died overnight in hospital in his adopted home for the past 74 years, Wigan. His death came only four days after the funeral of his wife, Lady Joan, to whom he had been married for 70 years.”
Son of an Irish-Welsh mother and a merchant seaman from Sierra Leone, Boston grew up as the sixth of 11 children in the Tiger Bay area of Cardiff. Joe Erskine, who would go to become a British heavyweight champion, lived a couple of doors down the street. Dame Shirley Bassey also grew up nearby.
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Boston’s childhood dream was to represent Cardiff and Wales in union. Yet no matter his try-scoring performances at schoolboy level and at trials, he never got as far as Cardiff’s second XV.
Union’s loss proved to be league’s gain after signing for Wigan in 1953 for a fee of £3,000. Crossing codes was viewed as an unforgivable sin in many quarters and Boston supposedly cried himself to sleep the night after signing, knowing he would never get to pull on a Wales shirt.
Boston scored an extraordinary 478 tries in 488 games for Wigan - Charlie Ley/Getty Images
Boston reached the 100-try mark in just 68 matches after switching codes and would score 24 tries in 31 appearances for Great Britain. He was part of the Great Britain side that won the 1960 World Cup, scoring a try in the final in a 10-3 defeat of Australia, and he won three Challenge Cups with Wigan.
He finished his career at Blackpool Borough but spent the rest of his life in Wigan who named stands after him at Central Park and then the Brick Community Stadium.
Boston was named in the Rugby Football League’s inaugural Hall of Fame in 1988 and similarly in the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame in 1990. After being appointed an MBE in 1996, he was belated awarded a knighthood for services to rugby league last summer.
Boston was knighted by King Charles last year - Getty Images
Sir Keir Starmer, the then Prime Minister, said that it was an “historic wrong” that the sport had waited so long to award him a knighthood. By that stage, Boston was suffering from dementia.
He passed away just weeks after his wife, Lady Joan, died.
Source: “AOL Breaking”
