Henry Cooper

by Robert Edwards

  Philostratus, writing much later, in AD 230, describes the ideal virtues of the good boxer, who should have ‘long and powerful arms, strong shoulders, a high neck and powerful and flexible wrists’. Handicaps are a thick shin (preventing agility) and a large stomach (preventing supple movements). In addition, the boxer should possess perseverance, patience, great willpower and strength. It is a fair description, this, and represents possibly the longest continuum of any sporting ideal. Fat is clearly a bad thing but, aside from the physical attributes to be treasured, Philostratus is also describing intelligence – the perfect bloke, in fact. He only neglects to mention the one element that is important to this book – durable eyebrows.

  Predictably enough, the Roman version of boxing is even crueller and more gladiatorial than the Greek. The Romans, forever pushing outward the envelope of public decency, see a huge potential in boxing. The Latin equivalent of the Greek pugme is pugilatus. From the recognizable encounters of the ancient Greeks at the 23rd Olympiad in 688 BC, the sport has now become a fight to the death, not as an exercise of arms or skill, but simply an event to please the mob: organized murder. The Oxeis Himantes are now Caesti (from Caedare – the Latin verb ‘to hack down’) – metal-studded straps wrapped tight around the fist. The damage they can do is quite awful. They are in effect little more than crude knuckledusters. The loser earns no drinking-cup now – he dies, and the winner merely survives. In short, it is little more than a slave’s activity.

  After the abolition of the Olympic Games in AD 393, and shortly before the final collapse of Rome, we do not hear about boxing for nearly a millennium and a half. There are passing references to it from time to time, mainly as a pastime for soldiers, but culturally and socially boxing virtually drops from sight, a completely lost art, if art it could be called.

  Unsurprisingly, it is in libertarian England, under the restored monarchy of Charles II, where we meet it again. It has not changed much from the free-for-all of the arena. The Caestes have gone; it is now a simple bare-knuckle affair, with kicking, holding, throttling and throwing all allowed. It resembles a degraded and hybrid oriental martial art (but entirely free of those ritual courtesies) crossed with a tap-room brawl as much as anything else, and one of the earliest recorded post-Cromwell bouts takes place in August 1681, when the Duke of Albemarle’s unfortunate footman is stopped by a butcher’s boy.

  This encounter rather sets the tone of the development of the sport as a series of bored and dissolute aristocrats send their long-suffering servants out simply to beat each other up. The fighters are paid little but some of the side-bets are vast. It is a chaotic series of unregulated brawls. In 1719, though, it all changes when the terrifying James Figg, born in 1695 in Thame in Oxfordshire, declares himself ‘Champion of England’. Figg has certainly done enough work; he is a curiously contemporary and disturbingly familiar figure to us now. Figg is illiterate, swaggering and shaven-headed and his modern equivalent can be found today in the cheap seats of any football ground, probably clutching a tin of high-octane lager. There is something faintly feral about him and he exhibits some distinctly criminal tendencies in matters fiscal. He will fight with anything, from cudgel to quarterstaff via fists and swords, and for anything – desiderata defined by him in 1727 as being ‘money, love or a bellyful’. Perhaps Figg reminds us, professionally at least, more than a little of Jack Dempsey. But he is also a first-class showman.

  Figg makes friends and sponsors quickly, in fact. As a prototypical curiosity, who clearly generates a dreadful fascination, he is celebrated by the literary and artistic figures of the day. His career, brief as it is, creates a popular reverence for fighters that has never really left us. William Hogarth engraves his trade-cards for him* and both Alexander Pope (still the best translator of the Iliad, where we first encounter boxing) and Jonathan Swift count him amongst their close acquaintances, possibly even writing his letters for him. His patron is the Earl of Peterborough, who funds and founds ‘Figg’s Amphitheatre’ in the Tottenham Court Road, an ambitious project that is part duelling academy, part venue, part betting shop – it is London’s first gym. It flourishes and will accommodate over 1,000 spectators.

  These earliest prizefights are chaotic, full-blooded tear-ups of quite astonishing violence, totally in the Roman tradition. Kicking, eye-gouging, biting, butting and throwing are all permitted, indeed encouraged. Blood, teeth, sweat and snot, we can imagine, thicken the already smoky atmosphere in Figg’s Amphitheatre. A favourite manoeuvre is the cross-buttock throw, similar to the O Goshi hip-throw from judo, with the added refinement that the thrower lands – as hard as he can – on top of his opponent’s gut. Only a throw-down or a knockdown can end a round. The audience want blood and they usually get it. Deaths are frequent and Figg, unsurprisingly, does not live long. In 1727, for example, he fights – inconclusively – Ned Sutton, first with his fists, followed by a decider with cudgels – and he dies after a short, violent life in around 1734 (by some accounts 1740). His torch is taken up by a pupil and protégé, Jack Broughton, who apes Figg’s skinhead tonsorial style. Both men are shaven-headed purely from a practical point of view because being grabbed by the hair was an occupational hazard.

  Broughton is from Bristol and has been spotted as a likely lad by the master as he completely savages some hapless foe (later fistic mythology terms this opponent, with commendable loyalty to Broughton, as a ‘bully’) in a welter of blood, snot and pain at a West Country fair. Figg, who I think we can safely assume is not a man to be easily impressed, has seen in Broughton a kindred spirit and the Bristolian is quickly taken up by the Duke of Cumberland, who does for Broughton what the Earl of Peterborough has done for Figg, and builds him a fine academy of his own. It abuts the late Figg’s Amphitheatre.

  Broughton, though, is rather different. He affects disdain for the crudity of mere fighting and becomes perhaps the first scientific boxer, developing and teaching techniques such as blocking and slipping, which are still recognizable today. In 1741 a seminal fight takes place – the encounter between Broughton and a coach driver from Yorkshire, George Stevenson. Unfortunately, Broughton kills him, breaking three of his ribs and probably puncturing a lung in the process. Poor Stevenson lingers on for an agonizing month, during which the somewhat guilt-ridden Broughton develops a great affection for him. By now lionized by an adoring public, the victor starts to consider his position.

  On 16 August 1743, The ‘Broughton Rules’ are published, ‘As agreed by Several Gentlemen at Broughton’s Amphitheatre’. They represent the first serious effort at codifying the rules of engagement of boxing since the original Olympic Games. The seven rules have a limited set of objectives, and they are clearly intended to apply only to Broughton’s own establishment, but they are relatively enlightened and humane by the standards of the time. By their very introduction, Broughton writes himself into the history books as the father of English, and therefore world, boxing. Here they are in more or less modern English:

  1. That a square of a yard be chalked into the middle of the stage; and on every fresh set-to after a fall, or being parted from the rails, each second is to bring his man to the side of the square, and place him opposite to the other, and till they are fairly set-to at the lines, it shall not be lawful for one to strike at the other.

  2. That, in order to prevent any disputes, the time a man lies after a fall, if the second does not bring his man to the side of the square within the space of half a minute, he shall be deemed a beaten man.

  3. That in every main battle, no person whatever shall be upon the stage, except the principals and their seconds; the same rule to be observed in bye-battles, except that in the latter, Mr. Broughton is allowed to be upon the stage to keep decorum, and to assist gentlemen in getting to their places; provided always he does not interfere in the Battle, and. whoever pretends to infringe these rules to be turned immediately out of the house. Everybody is to quit the stage as soon as the champions are stripped, before the set-to.

&n
bsp; 4. That no champion be deemed beaten, unless he fails coming up to the line in the limited time, or that his own second declares him beaten. No second is to be allowed to ask his man’s adversary any questions, or advise him to give out.

  5. That in bye-battles, the winning man to have two-thirds of the money given, which shall be publicly divided upon the stage, notwithstanding any private agreements to the contrary.

  6. That to prevent disputes, in every main battle the principals shall, on coming on the stage, choose from among the gentlemen present two umpires, who shall absolutely decide all disputes that may arise about the battle; and if the two Umpires cannot agree, the said umpires to choose a third, who is to determine it.

  7. That no person shall hit an adversary when he is down, or seize him by the ham, the breeches, or any part below the waist: a man on his knees to be reckoned down.

  But as well as attempting a proper set of rules, Broughton makes another contribution, which will prove significant. He develops the modern boxing glove, the ‘muffler’, for use in sparring and more lily-livered amateur competition. His concern is purely cosmetic, to save his aristocratic students, who were his bread and butter, from: ‘The inconveniency of black eyes, broken jaws and bloody noses.’ Broughton’s rules survive for nearly a century, in fact, and it is only in 1838, perhaps in deference to the new Queen, that they are revised.

  Broughton, unlike his mentor Figg, lives to a great age, possibly due to a relatively early and controversial retirement. The Duke of Cumberland, clearly still flushed with his success in the wake of the Battle of Culloden, wagers £10,000, at odds reputed to have been 10-1, that Broughton will beat a new challenger, the disreputable Jack Slack. Slack, ‘The first knight of the Cleaver’, is the classic bruiser (actually a butcher from Norwich), who insults Broughton one day at a race meeting. Broughton offers to horsewhip him but is prevailed upon instead to accept a formal challenge for his championship. The fight takes place on 10 April 1750 and, after a rather one-sided start, Slack lands a lucky blow, which (temporarily) blinds the champion. Cumberland, though, seeing his £10,000 – a truly colossal amount of money – rapidly disappearing, accuses Broughton of selling (‘swallowing’) the fight and, after the ex-champion’s seconds throw in the towel, he withdraws his backing and even goes so far as to have Broughton’s academy closed down later on. It is a distressing end to a quite glorious career – Broughton has held the title for over ten years and his departure leaves something of a vacuum at the top of the sport. As Slack, seeing opportunities of a more commercial nature in prizefighting, reverts to his previous trade in Covent Garden with a sideline in training, fixing and bribing. He prospers.

  After Broughton, the champions come and go, some of them more or less reputable than others, but clearly prizefighting is soon becoming a very seamy business indeed. Thrown fights, crooked betting, more deaths and severe injuries all combine to focus the attention of the law upon it very closely indeed and the organization of boxing matches develops into an art itself and coaching inns, on well-known roads and turnpikes, become a favoured venue. Advertising is largely by word of mouth or covertly distributed handbills. Boxing thrived as the worst-kept secret in Britain.

  Promoters and matchmakers, many of them connected with the turf, ensure that prizefighting remains firmly in the gutter where Slack put it. One of the most influential is Colonel Dennis O’Kelly, whose other claim to sporting immortality is that he is the owner of one of the greatest racehorses of all time – Eclipse. O’Kelly is responsible for the careers of several celebrated Irish fighters who dominate the sport from 1770 until a new crop of English fighters arrive upon the scene, of whom the most well known is Tom Tackling, who fights, for reasons best known to himself, as Tom Johnson.

  But the first successor to Broughton of any historical importance is Daniel Mendoza, ‘The Light of Israel’. Born of Spanish Sephardic Jewish ancestry in Aldgate in the East End of London, Mendoza is a small man, 5ft 7in, and he swiftly rises up the rankings, cannily promoting his own fights and beating a succession of proven opponents. One in particular, a young toff by the name of Richard Humphries, becomes a particular bugbear; the pair fight three times, and Humphries wins the first bout, reporting to his (unnamed) sponsor: ‘Sir, I have done the Jew and am in good health.’

  Mendoza battles on, clearly fighting against rather more than mere opponents – he wins both times against Humphries at their subsequent rematches – before becoming acknowledged champion of England in 1792. He himself is toppled three years later by one ‘Gentleman John’ Jackson, who has clearly read the rules and spotted a gap in them, for his tactic is simple: he grabs Mendoza, perfectly legally, by his luxuriant locks with one hand and hammers him in the face with the other until he drops, after 11 minutes. If anything, Mendoza is an even more technically skilled fighter than Broughton had been but against such exploitation of Broughton’s clearly rather naive rules, he stands little chance. But by his cleverness, even in the teeth of the establishment opposition, Mendoza succeeds in giving prizefighting a better name than anyone in 50 years.

  In 1814, Jackson, who wisely retires after only a handful of fights, forms the Pugilistic Club, operated from his academy at No 13 Bond Street, London, which attempts to exert some discipline upon boxing. At one level it is successful, and counts among its members both the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence, but it fails to achieve its purpose. It breaks up in 1825.

  Despite the opposition of the law there is still a huge amount of popular support for boxing. It is, along with horse racing, basically the national spectator sport, and similar types of crowds follow both activities. Interestingly, although duelling is legal, as a matter of honour between, it is assumed, two gentlemen who are apparently quite prepared (and allowed) to kill each other, prizefighting is not. But by the nineteenth century, the prizefighters are men of truly national importance and enthusiasm for the ‘noble art’ cuts right through society, from the royal family downwards. The patronage of rich men is naturally important to the activity and retired boxers are often to be seen in the employ of their aristocratic supporters and sponsors, as bodyguards, messengers and, frequently, leg-breakers. But the prize ring also produces figures of astonishing social import. One (of whom much more later) is John Gully, briefly champion of England, who retires from the ring in 1808 and becomes the Member of Parliament for Pontefract. As a colliery boss, Gully becomes a wealthy man and highly successful racehorse owner. A Liberal, naturally.

  More deaths in the ring, caused mainly by the custom of seconds being allowed to physically carry their man into the centre of the square, only to see him immediately flattened, cause a generally agreed revision to Broughton’s original rules in 1838. The square yard is replaced by a simple line scratched in the soil or chalked in the centre of the ring, so that if a fighter cannot reach it unaided – ‘come up to scratch’ – he is declared beaten.

  So the first half of the nineteenth century, building on the work of Mendoza, has also seen a slight improvement in professional standards over the second half of the eighteenth. Perhaps it is remarkable that the sport survived the eighteenth century at all given the philosophical tenets of that period, which culminated in the intellectual glories of the Enlightenment; but there was conflict in plenty as well, from the American Revolution, as well as the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, so there was no shortage of martial ardour, and violent and risky sports generally prosper in the wake of military conflicts.

  The early nineteenth-century champions, men such as Henry ‘Hen’ Pierce ‘the Game Chicken’, John Gully and the three Toms – Cribb, Spring and Cannon – are feted wherever they appear; they enjoy total social mobility in a much more rigidly stratified era than ours. At the coronation of George IV in 1821, no fewer than 18 prizefighters are hired to keep order, more specifically to bar the entry of his estranged and unhygienic wife, Caroline of Brunswick, who is banned from the occasion, which must have been a distressing encounter for her. Indeed, 19 days
after that, she died, un-mourned by George, who loathed her, but rather missed by the mob in front of whom she liked to cavort. A year before that, the Irish fighter Daniel Donnelly was knighted at the instigation of George IV when he was still the Prince of Wales. Donnelly was in fact the first boxing knight and would remain so for over 180 years.

  The late Georgian, Regency and early Victorian periods produce further notabilities as well as the odd bad boy. Ben Caunt, twice champion, is apparently a national treasure, whereas William Abednigo Thompson – ‘Bad Bold Bendigo’ – is in prison 28 times, mainly for being drunk and disorderly. Thompson is one of a trio of triplets born to a quite extraordinary harridan, who also has 18 other children. It is she who teaches him to box (she is recorded as having fought as a prizefighter – against male opponents – herself) and launches his career. The rivalry between Caunt and Thompson rather serves to define this era of the prize ring; the two men meet each other for the last time in 1845. The fight lasts 93 rounds, with a time elapsed of two hours and ten minutes. Thompson wins the encounter under controversial circumstances and retires. Later, he forswears drink to become an evangelistic preacher. There is a persistent story that the thirteen-ton bell in the clocktower of the Houses of Parliament is named ‘Big Ben’ in honour of Caunt, but research suggests that it was actually Sir Benjamin Hall, a particularly fat government minister, who was the inspiration for the name.

  The popularity of the senior exponents of prizefighting, against the illegality of what made them so famous, put the authorities in something of a quandary. It is a matter of record that very few of the top drawer of the English ring ever went to prison – at least, not for fighting – although several lesser fighters were scooped up by magistrates, rather as a gesture than anything else. Anyone who arrested the national champion for assault was liable to have a riot on their hands very quickly, and the magistrates realized that, so the most popular prizefighters were tolerated by the law purely on sufferance. Their popularity (and their wealthy patrons) granted them effective immunity from the law. It was a bizarre situation.