as far as i can make out so far..bare knuckle fighting was the national sport..attended by nobility but was also illegal ?
i read somwhere the police stopped fights yet also had a hand in awarding titles to fighters....? dsnt make sense.
were fights stopped according to whether or not they were on public property? or what ?
also is Boxiana available on free download anywhere ?
Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
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funso banjo baby
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Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
As a lawyer, I find the history of prizefighting quite interesting. Here is what I've been able to learn:
No activity starts out illegal. In England, James Figg was able to ply his trade without interference from the authorities in the early 1700s, perhaps because his patron was the Earl of Peterbourough, who assisted him in establishing a boxing academy. Some reports indicate that the first anti-boxing laws arose because of the Jack Broughton’s loss of the English championship in a bout in 1750. According to those accounts, Broughton’s loss so outraged his patron – the Duke of Cumberland, who had wagered heavily on Broughton - that the Duke withdrew his support of prizefighting, and actively encouraged the courts to declare prizefighting illegal.
Certainly, by 1765, prizefighting was considered illegal in Great Britain (and, by extension, the American colonies). According to English law, as reported in William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69), “a tilt or tournament, the martial diversion of our ancestors is an unlawful act: and so are boxing and sword playing, the succeeding amusements of their posterity.” I have not specifically looked at any of the court cases from that time – comprehensive early British legal materials are hard to find even in the best American law libraries – but it appears there was no specific legislation against prizefighting; instead, the English common law treated prizefighting as an affray, an assault and battery, a breach of peace, or a riot. Widespread public support for prizefighting in England, however, led to legal laxity and inconsistency of enforcement for a time. In the Golden Age of English prizefighting, champions like Mendoza, Jackson, Belcher, Pierce, Gully and Cribb were well regarded by sportsmen in the upper classes and royalty of English society (the so-called “fancy”), and, as a result, the sport remained unmolested for the most part by the authorities. However, by the mid-1800s, fixed fights and the involvement of unsavory characters in prizefighting, together with Victorian era morality, resulted in disillusionment by the fancy and outright hostility by many members of the upper classes. As a result, the authorities in the mid- to late- 1800s vigorously prosecuted prizefighting and prizefighters. (This action resulted in some of the best English bare-knuckers – men such as James Burke as early as 1837, and then Jem Mace, Tom Allen and Joe Goss in the 1870s – to seek greener pastures for their pursuits by immigrating to America, even though most states made boxing illegal in the United States as well.)
In the United States, authorities responded differently to make prizefighting illegal. As the frequency of prizefights in the United States increased, various state legislatures moved beyond the general – and sometimes vague – laws concerning assault and enacted laws that expressly forbade prizefights. New York, for example, banned promoting and engaging in “ring or prize fights” by specific legislation in 1859. In 1876, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced its intention to maintain a lawful and ordered society by ruling that “prizefighting, boxing matches, and encounters of that kind serve no useful purpose, tend to breaches of the peace, and are unlawful even when entered into by agreement and without anger or ill will.” Prizefighters frequently held matches in remote backwaters and contestants did not generally openly publicize the location of their fights so that they might avoid arrest; barges were also used as fight venues because they could be located in waters outside U.S. legal jurisdiction and fighters could compete unimpeded. Tom Allen, for example, fought at least three bare-knuckle contests on islands located in the middle of the Mississippi River between Illinois and Missouri to confuse local authorities regarding who had jurisdiction to arrest the participants. And the fight that solidified John L. Sullivan’s reputation – an 1881 bout against John Flood – took place on a barge in the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey, again to confound authorities with the jurisdictional question.
So, in summary, British courts used anti-rioting and assault laws to make prizefight illegal de facto (if not illegal de jure) during certain periods when the sport had fallen out of favor with the upper class. In America, the law made bare-knuckle prizefighting unlawful through passage of specific legislation banning prizefighting in the mid-1800s.
I find the application of anti-prizefighting laws much more interesting during the gloved era, where the law was much more unsettled: Were the anti-prizefighting laws limited just to bare knuckle bouts under the London Prize Ring Rules, or did those laws also apply to gloved bouts under the Marquis of Queensberry Rules? Should courts rigidly or loosely construe statutes of the late 1800s (such as New York’s Horton Law) that permitted fights of limited rounds at so-called “private clubs?” Courts and law enforcement officials grappled with those questions up until passage of New York’s Walker Law in 1920, which legalized commission-controlled boxing contests. Most states quickly followed New York’s lead and sanctioned commission regulated boxing cards (i.e., California in 1924).
I don't know if Boxiana is on-line, but you can shell out just a few bucks for the reprint on amazon.com.
No activity starts out illegal. In England, James Figg was able to ply his trade without interference from the authorities in the early 1700s, perhaps because his patron was the Earl of Peterbourough, who assisted him in establishing a boxing academy. Some reports indicate that the first anti-boxing laws arose because of the Jack Broughton’s loss of the English championship in a bout in 1750. According to those accounts, Broughton’s loss so outraged his patron – the Duke of Cumberland, who had wagered heavily on Broughton - that the Duke withdrew his support of prizefighting, and actively encouraged the courts to declare prizefighting illegal.
Certainly, by 1765, prizefighting was considered illegal in Great Britain (and, by extension, the American colonies). According to English law, as reported in William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69), “a tilt or tournament, the martial diversion of our ancestors is an unlawful act: and so are boxing and sword playing, the succeeding amusements of their posterity.” I have not specifically looked at any of the court cases from that time – comprehensive early British legal materials are hard to find even in the best American law libraries – but it appears there was no specific legislation against prizefighting; instead, the English common law treated prizefighting as an affray, an assault and battery, a breach of peace, or a riot. Widespread public support for prizefighting in England, however, led to legal laxity and inconsistency of enforcement for a time. In the Golden Age of English prizefighting, champions like Mendoza, Jackson, Belcher, Pierce, Gully and Cribb were well regarded by sportsmen in the upper classes and royalty of English society (the so-called “fancy”), and, as a result, the sport remained unmolested for the most part by the authorities. However, by the mid-1800s, fixed fights and the involvement of unsavory characters in prizefighting, together with Victorian era morality, resulted in disillusionment by the fancy and outright hostility by many members of the upper classes. As a result, the authorities in the mid- to late- 1800s vigorously prosecuted prizefighting and prizefighters. (This action resulted in some of the best English bare-knuckers – men such as James Burke as early as 1837, and then Jem Mace, Tom Allen and Joe Goss in the 1870s – to seek greener pastures for their pursuits by immigrating to America, even though most states made boxing illegal in the United States as well.)
In the United States, authorities responded differently to make prizefighting illegal. As the frequency of prizefights in the United States increased, various state legislatures moved beyond the general – and sometimes vague – laws concerning assault and enacted laws that expressly forbade prizefights. New York, for example, banned promoting and engaging in “ring or prize fights” by specific legislation in 1859. In 1876, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced its intention to maintain a lawful and ordered society by ruling that “prizefighting, boxing matches, and encounters of that kind serve no useful purpose, tend to breaches of the peace, and are unlawful even when entered into by agreement and without anger or ill will.” Prizefighters frequently held matches in remote backwaters and contestants did not generally openly publicize the location of their fights so that they might avoid arrest; barges were also used as fight venues because they could be located in waters outside U.S. legal jurisdiction and fighters could compete unimpeded. Tom Allen, for example, fought at least three bare-knuckle contests on islands located in the middle of the Mississippi River between Illinois and Missouri to confuse local authorities regarding who had jurisdiction to arrest the participants. And the fight that solidified John L. Sullivan’s reputation – an 1881 bout against John Flood – took place on a barge in the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey, again to confound authorities with the jurisdictional question.
So, in summary, British courts used anti-rioting and assault laws to make prizefight illegal de facto (if not illegal de jure) during certain periods when the sport had fallen out of favor with the upper class. In America, the law made bare-knuckle prizefighting unlawful through passage of specific legislation banning prizefighting in the mid-1800s.
I find the application of anti-prizefighting laws much more interesting during the gloved era, where the law was much more unsettled: Were the anti-prizefighting laws limited just to bare knuckle bouts under the London Prize Ring Rules, or did those laws also apply to gloved bouts under the Marquis of Queensberry Rules? Should courts rigidly or loosely construe statutes of the late 1800s (such as New York’s Horton Law) that permitted fights of limited rounds at so-called “private clubs?” Courts and law enforcement officials grappled with those questions up until passage of New York’s Walker Law in 1920, which legalized commission-controlled boxing contests. Most states quickly followed New York’s lead and sanctioned commission regulated boxing cards (i.e., California in 1924).
I don't know if Boxiana is on-line, but you can shell out just a few bucks for the reprint on amazon.com.
Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
Different magistrates treated it differently. Although it was illegal, but many kept a blind eye about these activities, or pretended they were going to prevent it, but didn't press too hard. It wasn't very often that pugilists or "abettors" were actually jailed for participating or assisting in a fight, except when it ended fatally. There were a lot of arguments in the press about whether it should be prosecuted or not, about "English spirit", etc. Often pugilists had to pay the bail to keep the peace, but they moved to another magistrate instead for a fight. There were legal disputes about whether the police had the right to cross the borders of neighbouring magistrates, when it was chasing prize fighters.
One particularly interesting example would be Sayers-Heenan fight, I guess. According to opinions of some people involved in making that fight, the police more of pretended that it was going to prevent the fight, than actually put efforts to doing this, although in the end it actually did, but not any sooner than the fight had gone for over 2 hours. Sayers was later introduced to the nobility, even to some members of the royal family.
So, officially, it was illegal, but wasn't particularly strict in enforcing the laws a lot of time.
When the police stopped a fight, it certainly didn't have any word in declaring the winner. I don't know where such claim would originate from.
Boxiana is a fun to read, but Pierce Egan was very much like Nat Fleischer in that he didn't hesitate to twist or re-invent the truth/facts, and to "beautify" many pugilists' stories, making every one look like heroes. I haven't seen links where it could be downloaded.
One particularly interesting example would be Sayers-Heenan fight, I guess. According to opinions of some people involved in making that fight, the police more of pretended that it was going to prevent the fight, than actually put efforts to doing this, although in the end it actually did, but not any sooner than the fight had gone for over 2 hours. Sayers was later introduced to the nobility, even to some members of the royal family.
So, officially, it was illegal, but wasn't particularly strict in enforcing the laws a lot of time.
When the police stopped a fight, it certainly didn't have any word in declaring the winner. I don't know where such claim would originate from.
Boxiana is a fun to read, but Pierce Egan was very much like Nat Fleischer in that he didn't hesitate to twist or re-invent the truth/facts, and to "beautify" many pugilists' stories, making every one look like heroes. I haven't seen links where it could be downloaded.
Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
A law book from around 1860 or so called Habet! covers the law as it pertains to boxing.
Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
Thank you Ray and Senya for all that info ")
appreciated
appreciated
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funso banjo baby
- Heavyweight
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Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
yah thanx guys ..this is really useful 
i'll try to find the piece I read that stated a police comissioner (or sumesuch) declared someone a champ(i cudnt believe it ..but i may wel be wrong)
2 other things
what about the claim made that Boxing was the national sport ?
presumable there wasnt much in the way of nationally organized sport...(certainly no footy yet)....i read that the boxing king was likened to the image of John Bull ie...the hard working english trier fighting the evils of the french etc...o folkore figure..or is this journalistic dillusion on the part of egan and fleischer et al.
at what point were crowds 'charged ' for watching fights....? at this time it seems most fights were just roped off riots in fields .
what was the split between woking class and nobility..did the 2 mix at these meetings
and can someone give me a brief glossary of terms....
eg.
the pepper box etc what words related to what parts of the body ?
and did the working classes use these terms (presumable not ?)
i'll try to find the piece I read that stated a police comissioner (or sumesuch) declared someone a champ(i cudnt believe it ..but i may wel be wrong)
2 other things
what about the claim made that Boxing was the national sport ?
presumable there wasnt much in the way of nationally organized sport...(certainly no footy yet)....i read that the boxing king was likened to the image of John Bull ie...the hard working english trier fighting the evils of the french etc...o folkore figure..or is this journalistic dillusion on the part of egan and fleischer et al.
at what point were crowds 'charged ' for watching fights....? at this time it seems most fights were just roped off riots in fields .
what was the split between woking class and nobility..did the 2 mix at these meetings
and can someone give me a brief glossary of terms....
eg.
the pepper box etc what words related to what parts of the body ?
and did the working classes use these terms (presumable not ?)
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funso banjo baby
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 4417
- Joined: 23 Sep 2005, 11:05
Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
ok ive found the article..its later and in america but im still confused..bearing in mind a john l sullivan fight had just recently been stopped by the police....
acccording to Peter brooke ball ........jake kilrain was the only credible challenger to Sullivan.
sullivan rejected his callenge which prompted richard k fox owner of the police gazette (?) to pronounce kilrain champ
this is from a little compendium called 'boxing album'
what was the poilce gazette ? and how could this be
acccording to Peter brooke ball ........jake kilrain was the only credible challenger to Sullivan.
sullivan rejected his callenge which prompted richard k fox owner of the police gazette (?) to pronounce kilrain champ
this is from a little compendium called 'boxing album'
what was the poilce gazette ? and how could this be
Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
Boxing was practised only in England for a while, so yes, it was considered a national sport. I recall a few times when even the judges accepted this argument during court hearings about prize fights, but this was either late 18th or very early 19th centuries only.
Spectators were charged for watching the fights back in 1710-1720's already. There were commonly accepted rules of how the fights had to be conducted, even before Broughton introduced his rules, and after that even when two commoners used the fists to deside an argument, there were rounds (a knockdown ended the round), and most of the time there were seconds (bottle-holders) and umpires (judges), or, at least, the people passing by or who intentionally gathered to watch the fight, looked after pugilists, that it was fought the fair way, or when it became too one-sided, could part the fighters and prevent a slaughter.
Nobility sometimes took athletic lessons from pugilists and could participate in private sparrings with the gloves.
Egan invented too many terms to list them. Other writers began using them too, but certainly not to the same extent as Egan himself, he was criticized for using slang terms so much. Egan and John Badcock published their slang dictionaries, but you won't find most of Egan's terms there, he was inventing slang as he was writing, very eccentric.
P.S. Police gazette
Spectators were charged for watching the fights back in 1710-1720's already. There were commonly accepted rules of how the fights had to be conducted, even before Broughton introduced his rules, and after that even when two commoners used the fists to deside an argument, there were rounds (a knockdown ended the round), and most of the time there were seconds (bottle-holders) and umpires (judges), or, at least, the people passing by or who intentionally gathered to watch the fight, looked after pugilists, that it was fought the fair way, or when it became too one-sided, could part the fighters and prevent a slaughter.
Nobility sometimes took athletic lessons from pugilists and could participate in private sparrings with the gloves.
Egan invented too many terms to list them. Other writers began using them too, but certainly not to the same extent as Egan himself, he was criticized for using slang terms so much. Egan and John Badcock published their slang dictionaries, but you won't find most of Egan's terms there, he was inventing slang as he was writing, very eccentric.
P.S. Police gazette
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funso banjo baby
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Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
ah ok ..thanx
Police gazette was bugger all to do with the police then ? lol
Police gazette was bugger all to do with the police then ? lol
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funso banjo baby
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Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
cant seem to find any info of when 'punters' were first charged for entry
did figg charge at his auditorium thingy...?
most of the rest seemed to be just fields and stuff.
also what was the ratio between the bare knuckle kings who were 'gentlemen' or 'men'
did figg charge at his auditorium thingy...?
most of the rest seemed to be just fields and stuff.
also what was the ratio between the bare knuckle kings who were 'gentlemen' or 'men'
Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
The National Police Gazette was a Victorian era combination of The Ring Magazine and Playboy. Extremely popular amongst the male population, it was found in most barbershops of the day.
Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
One could also analogize the Police Gazette as a combination of Sports Illustrated and the National Inquirer.
As for boxing, the Gazette was quite good, and probably the best publication of its kind at that time. The sports editor for many years was Sam Austin, who took his duties very seriously and was a responsible reporter. Austin wrote a weekly column in the Gazette in which he discussed the goings-on in the world of boxing. His columns are quite insightful and revealing - especially when he discussed activities relating to New York, where the Gazette was headquartered, but less so for activities outside New York since he had to rely on correspondents for his information.
The Gazette is available on-line through ProQuest and at most major university libraries. However, the proQuest/microfilm version has gaps. I am told a complete set exists in the archives of one of the California universities near Sacramento. I can't recall the name of that institution.
As for boxing, the Gazette was quite good, and probably the best publication of its kind at that time. The sports editor for many years was Sam Austin, who took his duties very seriously and was a responsible reporter. Austin wrote a weekly column in the Gazette in which he discussed the goings-on in the world of boxing. His columns are quite insightful and revealing - especially when he discussed activities relating to New York, where the Gazette was headquartered, but less so for activities outside New York since he had to rely on correspondents for his information.
The Gazette is available on-line through ProQuest and at most major university libraries. However, the proQuest/microfilm version has gaps. I am told a complete set exists in the archives of one of the California universities near Sacramento. I can't recall the name of that institution.
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funso banjo baby
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Re: Legality of bare knuckle fighting 1800s
this is useful...cheers