The Great White Hopes

by Graeme Kent

  Hague’s new backer, F.J. Law, owner of the Montague Arms Hotel in Mexborough, tried to persuade his heavyweight to go to the USA as the latest European White Hope, but the insular and unambitious Hague would have none of it. Instead, he went to Plymouth and fought a swinging, aggressive and slightly crazy Irishman, Petty Officer Matthew ‘Nutty’ Curran. Curran was apt to go off the rails in his enjoyment of a fight, and as a result had been disqualified on a number of occasions. This time Curran connected legitimately with lethal effect quite early on in the fight and Hague had to be supported out of the ring.

  Because the bout had not taken place at the National Sporting Club, Hague was deemed by that superior body not to have lost his title. Indeed, the committee now invited him to defend his crown against Bill Chase, a Notting Hill butcher. Chase was a novice who, like Hague before him, had won a competition at the NSC. Chase knocked Hague down early on, but the Mexborough man still had his punch, and he got up to knock the butcher out. This caused one animal-loving member at the ringside to murmur, ‘Won’t the bullocks be pleased!’

  Hague had half a dozen more fights. He lost to Jewey Smith, but again retained his title when the NSC refused to recognise Smith; he then outpointed Smith in a return contest. Next, in 1911, Hague was invited to defend his title at the NSC against Britain’s up-andcoming White Hope, Bombardier Billy Wells. Their fight was for the first Lonsdale Belt to be awarded in the heavyweight class. Hague’s Yorkshire connections begged their man to take the fight seriously. A victory over Wells would mean the heavyweight securing for himself some very lucrative matches in England against the everincreasing number of visiting Americans.

  In one of the most curious pairings in the history of the sport, he was inducted into the training regime of the aesthetic Welshman Freddy Welsh. An ardent physical culturist and devout vegetarian, Welsh was the British lightweight champion who a few years later would win the world championship at his weight. A strict, harsh, humourless man subject to fits of depression, he harried Hague from morning till night at his training camp.

  What was worse, he made the corpulent heavyweight eat just one main meal a day, and a vegetarian one at that. After a morning of running, ball-punching and physical exercises, Hague was allowed to devour a single nourishing plate of potatoes, beans and macaroni cheese, garnished with two poached eggs. To drink, the beerswilling Mexborough man was given the choice of water or milk. Hague protested long and loud, to no avail, but the chastened and mutinous heavyweight was dispatched to London by his trainer in, by the heavyweight’s standards, peak condition.

  Early in the fight Hague connected with his overarm right. For a moment Wells tottered, but he recovered to jab his way out of trouble. Gradually he got on top of the game Yorkshireman, flooring Hague four times and ending the bout with a mighty righthand punch in the sixth round.

  Bereft of his title, it was the end of the road for Hague as a White Hope. He fought on, beating a few no-hopers but losing to the good men he encountered in the ring. Immediately after the Wells bout, he met Scot Jim Robb in his home town. He was still showing the effects of Freddy Welsh’s strict training regime, causing the Mexborough and Swinton Times reporter to comment approvingly of their man, ‘He turned out better than I think I have ever seen him and he had a healthy colour.’

  Robb never landed a punch or even made a lead. Hague hit him once on the chin. The local reporter wrote, ‘Robb tumbled down in an inglorious heap, grovelled on his stomach amongst the resin, was counted out, dragged to his corner, and left the ring explaining to his own seeming satisfaction what had happened.’

  A month later, Hague fought another White Hope, the Cumbrian Tom Cowler, who would go on to make quite a stir in the USA. They fought for a side-stake of £25, and Hague was knocked out in eight rounds.

  The search for a viable and young English White Hope continued. All over the country promoters wishing to draw the crowds would advertise a White Hope tournament and invite a few inept clumsy giants to swipe away at each other. And there was no shortage of would-be hopefuls. Much was made at the time of the plight of a certain Corporal Lightfoot of the Royal Scots Guards, one of the many huge soldiers who had taken up boxing. He had displayed some skills in the Army as a heavyweight boxer, and managers were eager to buy him out. His regiment refused to let him go, citing the regulation applying to service footballers, who, because of the depredations wreaked upon forces football by the incursions of professional managers, were forbidden from resigning in order to join one of the burgeoning football league clubs.

  With Hague out of the reckoning, the time for the emergence of another national White Hope was ripe, and in 1910 it looked as if one had arrived in the person of Bombardier Billy Wells. A wellbuilt, handsome, wavy-haired young man of 22, Wells had achieved considerable success as a heavyweight in Army competitions in India, where he had been serving in the Royal Artillery, culminating in three wins in contests at Poona to take the All-India championship.

  Army boxing continued to flourish. In 1908, Colonel Sir Malcolm Fox, Inspector of Gymnasia, led the way by encouraging the Brigade of Guards to hire professionals to teach its men to box according to Queensberry rules, in order to develop aggression in recruits and aid skills in bayonet fighting. Other units had followed this example, and in India young Gunner Wells was coached by the professional Jim Maloney, who had once been a well-respected lightweight.

  Maloney had his own training camp, which was sponsored by the military. He had been quick to spot the young heavyweight’s potential and had urged Wells to buy himself out and profit from the craze for White Hopes sweeping across Great Britain. Wells was a cautious man but he could see the sense of the experienced fighter’s advice. He paid the necessary £21 release fee and returned to England, arranging for Maloney to follow him and become his manager.

  Wells had been demobilised with the rank of bombardier, equivalent to corporal, an appellation which he used throughout his ring career, even when he became a sergeant major upon his recall to the colours during the First World War. Soon after he had landed back in Great Britain, Wells went to the offices of the trade magazine, Boxing, and asked for advice. The editor, John Murray, arranged for the ex-bombardier to have a private trial with the highly rated and very experienced Gunner Moir. For two rounds Wells boxed beautifully, but in the third the Gunner caught up with him and put him down with a hard body punch. Still, the All-Indian champion had shown up well enough to be offered a job as Moir’s sparring partner.

  Although he had held the British heavyweight title, Moir was never regarded as a White Hope. He had been defeated in ten rounds in a world-title challenge against Tommy Burns. During this bout, among other sharp practices the crafty Burns had trapped Moir’s glove under his arm while he was hitting the Englishman, while also managing to give the impression to referee Eugene Corri that it was Moir who was doing the holding. Afterwards Moir commented on the incident with shocked dignity in his instructional book The Complete Boxer: ‘I permitted myself, foolishly, to become sufficiently exasperated to draw Mr Corri’s attention to the actual state of affairs, with the result that I had my face cut open in two places.’

  Wells acquitted himself well in the role of sparring partner to Moir and embarked upon a career as a professional boxer. He started by knocking out Gunner Murray in the first round, attracting the interest of a celebrated referee, Eugene Corri. Corri idly mentioned to a reporter that the young ex-soldier might even one day develop into a fitting opponent for Jack Johnson. The newspaper splashed the story across its sports pages and Wells was famous before he had even emerged from the novice stage. His next fight was against Corporal Brown of the Coldstream Guards in the arena off the Whitechapel Road known as Wonderland. It was there before a large and expectant crowd that the young heavyweight displayed two of the traits that were to prevent his ever scaling the fistic heights nerves and a soft heart. W. Barrington Dalby, who was in the crowd that night, described in his book Come In, Barry! how Wells was literally s
haking with fright before the bout. The fighter’s seconds did their best to calm their man, but one of them turned to a ringside spectator and muttered in disgust, ‘He’s no good – too long in the bleeding belly!’

  In the first round Wells caught his opponent with a good punch but seemed disinclined to press home his advantage. Taking heart, Brown bundled into his opponent, scoring with some heavy blows. In the second round Brown gained in confidence and started hitting the cautious Wells almost at will. The former champion of all India was booed back to his corner when the bell ended the round. During the interval Wells’s chief second did his best to stir his charge, hissing at him the immortal phrase, ‘Get out there and get wicked!’

  The vehemence of his second and the disapproval of the crowd seemed to transform Wells. At the start of the third round he danced across the ring on his toes, stunned Brown with three superb left jabs and then caught his opponent on the chin with a sweeping right. Brown tottered forward, collapsed and was unconscious for twenty minutes.

  After this, for a time Wells could do no wrong. He had received only eighteen shillings for one of his first professional bouts, but he was soon doing much better than that. Crowds flocked to his fights and the handsome young heavyweight with the spectacular straight left became a public idol. The seal was placed on his success when the Australian promoter Hugh D. McIntosh landed in Great Britain and began promoting tournaments in London, living up to his promise of taking boxing away from the fleapits of the East End and the cloistered aristocracy of the National Sporting Club, and making it a sport for the respectable and well-heeled middle class.

  In order to do this McIntosh needed a drawing card, preferably a heavyweight White Hope. Again Eugene Corri came to Wells’s aid, judiciously recommending the young heavyweight to the Australian promoter. ‘I told him that Wells was his man, goodlooking, a real clean boxer, and becoming more popular every day as the boxing world was getting to know him.’ McIntosh signed up Wells at £100 a contest, and put him in with a series of apelike British heavyweights, emphasising the ‘beauty and the beast’ aspects of the matches. With one exception, Wells did him proud, scoring a series of knockouts and making even the most cynical fight fan wonder whether at last England might be producing a world-class heavyweight.

  Then Wells blotted his copybook. He was matched with the ponderous veteran Gunner Moir. Only a year before, Wells had earned a few shillings sparring with the former champion. A packed house turned out to see the bout, as rumours were spreading that the anticipated walkover against the Gunner was a mere preamble to Wells being matched for the world championship against Jack Johnson.

  For three rounds Wells gave Moir a boxing lesson. His glorious left hand was seldom out of his shorter opponent’s face. Twice his right hand tumbled Moir to the floor. The crowd cheered and marvelled at the display of a thoroughbred. Towards the end of the third round, Wells smashed Moir to the canvas once more. Groggily the Gunner stood up. Wells measured him lazily with a long left before moving in to apply the closure with his cocked right. As if acting instinctively, the dazed Moir swayed inside Wells’s extended left arm and hit the tall man hard in the stomach. The young heavyweight gasped, doubled up and fell to the floor, where he remained while the referee counted him out.

  ‘I felt sure that I had the Gunner beaten to the world by the end of the first round . . .’ wrote Wells ruefully in his book Modern Boxing. ‘He got home one rib drive, however, right at the start, and then proceeded to use his strength in the clinches.’

  Dedicated fight fans seemed embarrassed rather than annoyed by Wells’s loss. It was claimed that Wells had been handicapped earlier in the fight by his apprehensive manager Jim Maloney shouting, ‘Stand back, Bill!’, whenever his heavyweight had Moir in trouble.

  The Bombardier was too popular and his connections were too good to allow him to be summarily discarded. Less than two months later he was given a chance to redeem himself by being matched against the capable American journeyman Porky Flynn.

  Wells rose to the occasion by outpointing the American in a rousing contest dominated by the Englishman’s left hand. In the end Flynn, for all his experience, was reduced to scuttling backwards behind a barrier of arms crossed over his head.

  Immediately afterwards, referee Eugene Corri and Peggy Bettinson, manager of the National Sporting Club, took Wells to the Fulham gymnasium of professional strongman and boxing enthusiast Thomas Inch, known as the Scarborough Hercules. They asked the physical culturist to take the heavyweight under his wing and develop his physique and strength. Inch put Wells on to a successful regime of lifting light weights, increasing his stamina and punching power.

  The wealthy and successful bodybuilding instructor had become a force in the British quest for a White Hope. He announced as much in the weekly Boxing. ‘Mr Thomas Inch, the famous physical culture expert, is prepared to undertake the full cost of training, etc., any likely applicant. Mr Inch will do all he can for any really good big man who comes forward, being anxious that England should not miss the chance of a prospective world’s champion . . .’

  Under the tutelage of Inch, Wells was then matched against Iron Hague at the National Sporting Club for the Yorkshireman’s British heavyweight title. Wells knocked his opponent out in the sixth round. Afterwards a rueful Hague said that the well-conditioned Wells had hit him harder than Sam Langford had.

  That was enough. Wells’s backers were not going to risk their prospect getting unravelled again by matching him against some hard-punching second-rater who might connect, as Moir had done, with a lucky punch. The time was ripe to make some serious money in a really big fight. It was announced that Wells would box Jack Johnson in London for the world heavyweight title. To many it did not seem such an unlikely concept. After the Hague fight, the editor of Boxing stated, ‘Given the necessary strength and stamina and a little more experience of possible dangers Wells should stand a good chance.’

  Another subject for the headlines of that year was the arrival in Great Britain of Jack Johnson, heavyweight champion of the world and fugitive from American justice. He had been forced to flee from the USA after being accused of violating the Mann Act by transporting a prostitute across state lines. In effect, all that Johnson had done was travel with his mistress of the time, Belle Schreiber, but this had been enough for the authorities to arrest the champion and then release him on bail. Johnson had skipped the country and was about to embark upon a tour of the music halls, which would take in London, Marseilles, Lyons, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest and St Petersburg. His twenty-minute act consisted of some bag-punching, a training exhibition, a perfunctory display of dancing and accompanying himself on the bass viol while he sang ‘Baby’s Sock is a Bluebag Now’.

  Journalist Norman Clarke visited Johnson in his dressing room at the Golders Green Hippodrome during this tour and commented on the numerous wardrobe trunks piled in his room, each filled to overflowing with patent leather boots, silk shirts and other expensive items of clothing. Clarke was particularly impressed with Johnson’s partner, on and off stage, the white Lucille Cameron. He recalled in his autobiography All in the Game, ‘Both in figure and face I have rarely seen such a beautiful creature; she had the head and features of a Greek goddess, and when they danced together, as they did in the show, Jack certainly in no way marred the picture.’

  The Times gave a cautious and condescending welcome to the black champion. ‘He sported rather more gold teeth than are worn by gentlemen in the shires, and enough diamonds to resemble a starry night, but he was on the whole a far more pleasant person to meet in a room than any of the white champions of complicated nationality whom America exports from time to time to these unwilling shores.’

  The match was promoted by a shrewd Lancashire financier called Jimmy White. Never afraid to splash out, when White had once failed to find a taxi to take him to an appointment, he had flagged down a London bus, paid its passengers to disembark and then given the driver £5 to take him st
raight to his destination.

  The championship match was scheduled over twenty rounds. Posters were exhibited all over London, advertising the forthcoming bill at the Empress Hall, Earls Court. First, Sid Burns of Great Britain would fight Georges Carpentier of France in a final eliminator for the European welterweight title. This would be followed at ten o’clock sharp by a bout for the World Heavyweight Championship, between Jack Johnson, champion of the world, and Bombardier Billy Wells, champion of England. Seat prices ranged from five guineas at ringside to ten shillings and sixpence. Bombardier Billy Wells could be seen training on Thursdays and Saturdays at 5 p.m.

  It was the fight of the century for British fans. Tickets were snapped up almost as soon as they were printed. Then disaster struck. It was announced that strong objections had been lodged against such an interracial bout and that there was a strong demand for the championship contest to be called off.

  The demand was being led by the Revd Dr F.B. Meyer, recently appointed as Secretary of the Free Church Council and eagerly looking for a way of publicising himself and his office. He was also looking for a cause through which to rally the different Free Churches under his leadership. Opposition to a boxing match, particularly one with racial connotations, would ally the denominations and provide his council with a crusade. In a skilfully conducted publicity campaign in the newspapers, Meyer reminded the public of the race riots that had occurred after Jack Johnson’s victory over Jeffries in Reno, and played up the inherent brutality of boxing, which, he pointed out, still had only semi-legal status in many parts of the world.