Northern Irish civil rights founder who was put off by militancy

Fred Heatley, who has died in his native Belfast, made history as one of the founders of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA). He also documented history, as an outstanding and self-educated local historian, and was a pacifist who fought as a professional boxer.

NICRA's founding meeting in January 1967 elected him as treasurer. The year previously he had attended the meeting of the Wolfe Tone Societies in Maghera, Co Derry, where it was decided to establish a civil rights movement. (The Wolfe Tone Societies had been set up after Tone's bicentennial to influence political and cultural trends.)

Subsequently Heatley was batoned and arrested when police attacked the civil rights march in Derry on October 5th, 1968. He was also in the march loyalists attacked at Burntollet Bridge, Co Derry, in January 1969. However, he became uncomfortable about the increasing militancy of the movement and withdrew.

He had also put himself on the line. He lived, with his Dublin-born wife and family, in the predominantly Protestant Rathcoole estate to the north of Belfast. In early 1970, as the North slid further into sectarianism, the family were intimidated from their home.

Withdrawing from activity gave him more time for his passion of local history. Already in 1967, the Belfast Wolfe Tone Society had published his biography of Henry Joy McCracken. This led the Ulster Museum to put on an exhibition about McCracken, and the BBC and Ulster Television to broadcast programmes.

As a historian he wrote histories of St Patrick's and St Joseph's Catholic churches in Belfast. He was a founder of the West Belfast Historical Society and a mainstay for many years. He also worked with the North Belfast Historical Society. There are two indications of his standing as a man and a historian. As a lifelong nondriver, the UVF gave him a a guarantee of safe passage to travel by taxi to north Belfast meetings; and he was made a governor of Belfast's Linenhall Library.

Miscarriages of justice

Despite withdrawal from activism, during the Ulster Workers’ Council strike of 1974 he was involved in sourcing and distributing food supplies in his area of west Belfast, and over the years in campaigning against several miscarriages of justice.

Heatley was born in Belfast's docks area in 1934, one of six surviving children to Edward Heatley, who owned a business descaling ships' boilers, and his wife Cassie (née Cushnahan). He was educated at St Joseph's Primary School, Earl Street. He left school at 14, becoming a messenger boy, then a sewing machine fitter and then a precision fitter. He spent the last years of his working life as a maintenance fitter on newspaper printing presses, finally giving guided tours of Belfast.

In his late teens, he fought half a dozen times as a professional boxer, retiring after his second defeat.

He is survived by his daughters Breedagh, Bronagh and Siobhán: sons Fintan and Conal: and sister Rita. He was predeceased by his wife, Stella.

• Fred Heatley: born July 21st, 1934; died April 21st 2017