Boxers of Bethnal Green. Photos: Alex Hocking, text: Charles Jennings. (4/5)

York Hall, Bethnal Green. © Alex Hocking 2011.

Boxing: 1810 – a compilation by Charles Jennings:

 Gentleman John Jackson – Dear Jack, Byron called him…
Jackson, a former bare-knuckle champion, retired from the ring and started his own school at 13 New Bond Street…
Foreigners can scarcely understand how we can squeeze pleasure out of this pastime; the luxury of hard blows given or received; the great joy of the ring; nor the perseverance of the combatants…
A prizefight to be held in a country town, such as Grantham or Derby, would attract spectators from as far away as London or York…
A crowd of seven thousand…
The gentlemen of ‘The Fancy’…
Nob-thatchers…
a bit of muslin…
Not to have taken lessons from Mr. Jackson was a positive neglect of a gentleman’s ordinary education…
Bob Gregson, the ‘Lancashire Giant’, fifteen stones in weight and over six feet tall…
Exercise is good, and this the severest of all; fencing and broadsword never fatigued me half so much…
A fight could last up to fifty rounds…
Not a bad boxer when I could keep my temper, which was difficult…
Holding a man’s hair to keep him in place to be hit…
This cover-me-decently, was all very well at Hawthorn Hall, I dare say; but here, among the pinks in Rotten-row, the lady-birds in the Saloon…
the legs and levanters at Tattersall’s…
it would be taken for nothing less than the index of a complete Flat…
The Prince Regent withdrew his patronage, and refused to attend any further prizefights after a man he had promoted was killed in the ring

Italians stab their friends behind,
In darkest shades of night;
But Britons they are bold and kind,
And box their friends by light

 High Society: A Social History of the Regency Period; Lord Byron; William Hazlitt; and others.

… for The London Column.