Sam Langford's IBU Heavyweight Championship Line

At this time Canadian basically meant being British.

 

But never English!

 

The recognized champion was Johnson.

 

Canadians could fight for the British Comnonwealth title,but not the English title,despite what the NSC said.
The NSC did not recognize domestic titles unless they were fought under their own auspices.
A year after Langford fought Hague ,[1911] the NSC introduced a colour bar ban on blacks contesting British titles.
Did you know Black boxers were banned from becoming British Champions until the 1940's? | National Museums Liverpool

Breaking the Barrier: How Dick Turpin Became Britain's First Black Boxing Champion.
The reason for this shameful period was supposedly because of the negative fall out from the proposed Heavyweight world title fight between Johnson and Bombadier Billy Wells which was cancelled by the Foreign Office for fear a drubbing of Wells would negatively encourage blacks under the suppression of GB in its colonies.

 

And yeah that ban would make sense why Langford would lose the NSC title in April 1911 in particular. But it doesn't answer the answer of his status prior. Langford was clearly allowed to fight for the NSC title which was a world title not a local one which to this day are still almost always limited to locals. They were clearly trying to match up Hague with Johnson to.

The NSC did not only recognize local champions. The Commonwealth title had been previously considered a world title at HW in the 19th century and at a few points in the 20th it was considered that in other weight classes and would have been considered that more often if its champions actually won unifiers. And while not named the NSC title it was still run by the NSC I think later being spun off into a seperate subsidary around the time the NSC evolved into the BBBC .

Note-It will never cease to amaze me how Churchill got himself involved in everything that happened in Britain from the 1910s to 1940s.