Hi had read that that was the big boxing arena in England during the early 20th Century.
located in the East End of London on Whitechapel Road
What is the history behind it, what famous boxers and matches were held there
and what happened to it and when ?
Wonderland (London England)
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Caractacus
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Caractacus
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Re: Wonderland (London England)
here is a link to a photograph from 1902 of the interior of Wonderland during a boxing match.
https://ebay.com/itm/257145561103
https://ebay.com/itm/257145561103
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Controversial
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Caractacus
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Re: Wonderland (London England)
Interesting enough, another source claims that Wonderland had opened in 1890 (and boxing was introduced there in 1894) and the building burned down in 1911.
Ted "Kd" Lewis aka the Aldgate Sphinx
had made his pro debut at Wonderland in 1909
https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/11911
Ted "Kd" Lewis aka the Aldgate Sphinx
had made his pro debut at Wonderland in 1909
https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/11911
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Caractacus
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Re: Wonderland (London England)
Here is an entire chapter on Wonderland from the 1902 publication THE NIGHT SIDE OF LONDON.
pp 259-269.
https://google.com/books/edition/The_Ni ... frontcover
pp 259-269.
https://google.com/books/edition/The_Ni ... frontcover
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Re: Wonderland (London England)
An extract from my piece which appeared in Boxing News on 17 April 2025.
Harris Cashstein did not want to live an ordinary life. Not for him the factory, the dockyard or the uniform of a serving soldier. Harris wanted do things his own way, to make his own money and to be independent. As we would put it today, he wanted to be his own boss. In Edwardian England this was a brave route to take and filled with risk, but Harris was used to that. Born in 1870, he had picked up at least two criminal convictions by the time he was seventeen, one for ‘hounding’, which today would be known as harassment, and one for malicious wounding. Despite being a hard man on the streets he was also a disciplined sportsman, winning medals for running and swimming. In 1889 he supposedly won a mile race in Chicago, USA. How he got there and why he chose not to stay, as so many did, is lost to history. Harris’s brother Joe was known as the ‘King of the Jews’ in the East End, and Cashstein therefore had the right connections, and the personality, to get on in life. The East End was mainly inhabited by Jews during the Edwardian era, with many of them arriving in the UK to escape from the massacres of the Jewish population that were taking place across the Russian Empire. To the average Londoner their names were often incomprehensible and many of them anglicised their names. Gershon Mendeloff, for instance, took the name Ted Kid Lewis and Judiah Bergman became Jack Kid Berg. Harris Cashstein took the name Harry Jacobs.
Jack Woolf was another man with a similar view on life to that of Jacobs. In 1896 Woolf was a publican, running the East London Tavern on the Commercial Road in Whitechapel. He opened a low-brow music hall in a new building which he had constructed next door to the pub where he staged freak shows. Amongst the acts he put on were the ‘untameable lions’, the ‘Queen of the Midgets’ and ‘The Lady with the Lobster Claws’. In 1897 Woolf was approached by Ted White and Fred Hollingworth who wanted to stage boxing tournaments in the building. Its shape, size and location made it the perfect place for such an enterprise and other syndicates soon followed. During 1900 the hall was used for professional boxing sixty-five times by, amongst others, Professor Joe Smith, Charley Bromley, the boxers Bill Chester and Pedlar Palmer, and Harry Wright. These were all big names in the sport and Woolf’s boxing hall started to attract real attention.
Jack Woolf named the place Wonderland. A large rectangular building that seated around three thousand, Wonderland was built on land that had stood empty for seventeen years following the destruction of the East London Theatre in a fire in 1879. Harry Wright, one of Woolf’s promoters and a man who had previously promoted running, cycling and swimming events, was determined to make a go of boxing, and in Harry Jacobs he saw a man who he could trust and do business with, and a partnership was formed. The two men developed a stranglehold on the venue, and they quickly became London’s leading small hall promoters. Jacobs, however, was a difficult man to get along with and his partnership with Wright was dissolved after about five years, but during that time they produced champions by the score.
In 1905 Jacobs became the sole promoter at Wonderland and with his proprietor, Jack Woolf, with whom he had developed a good working relationship, he staged Saturday night shows at the venue every week, all year round. The two men also put on important shows on occasional Mondays and the place was usually packed. The Night Side of London, published in 1902, gives an interesting perspective into what a night’s boxing was like at the venue at the time Jacobs was at the helm with Harry Wright. In describing the sport on an evening that I have identified as 18 January 1902, it states that “There is a large crowd outside the doors waiting for news of the results of the battles taking place within. They have not the necessary shilling or sixpence that gives admission. You pass into the building, at the door stands a solitary policeman. Probably there are two thousand men crammed into the space. Most of them are young, the great majority of them are between twenty and thirty, and nearly all of them are of the recognisable East End types. Your Hebrew of Aldgate is well represented tonight. The programme is a long one – you are to get plenty for your money; three eight-round contests, five of six rounds each a four rounder and a 9st 2lbs competition. There is no disorder, indeed, the orderliness of the crowd is remarkable”. The writer then goes on to describe the various vendors of refreshments selling jellied eels, oranges, ginger beer, lemonade and cigarettes. That evening the eight-round main event was between Jewey Cook of Aldgate and Charlie Knock of Stratford. The two men furnished an exciting bout that ended in a draw to the satisfaction of nobody, “The whole house breaks into an uproar. For a moment it seems as if there were to be a gigantic row, but the tumult ceases as the MC steps into the ring and throws oil on the troubled waters by saying there was no disputing the decision of the referee. Moreover, there would be another opportunity for Charley and Jewey to meet once more, the management would see to that”.
Amongst the very many great fighters that Wonderland featured during the Edwardian era were Pedlar Palmer, Digger Stanley, Cockney Cohen, Young Joseph, Jack Goldswain and Curley Watson. Undoubtedly, the most auspicious occasion took place on 10 February 1908 when the world heavyweight champion, Tommy Burns, defended his title at Wonderland against Jack Palmer, of Newcastle. Just ten weeks beforehand, Burns had knocked out Gunner Moir, the British heavyweight champion, in ten rounds at the National Sporting Club, and it was after this contest that Palmer threw out his challenge. Born in Pelton, Co. Durham, Palmer, whose real name was John Liddell, spent most of his life in Newcastle. His last contest had taken place eleven months previously when he was knocked out by Jack Twin Sullivan in Los Angeles. He was a huge underdog against Burns, and it showed. The Canadian despatched Palmer in four rounds.
In late 1909, Jacobs and Woolf fell out. Jacobs sought an injunction against Woolf to ensure that for the remaining time that he had a contract to use the venue, Woolf must not interfere with the business. This was too much for the owner of the building and Woolf who, unusually for the time had a telephone in his office, told Jacobs that he was not allowed to use it. This made it impossible for Jacobs to conduct business, for he heeded the phone to arrange the contests and to sell tickets, and so he walked away from the place, leaving behind a sworn enemy. For the next eighteen months Woolf continued to operate at Wonderland on his own and Jacobs set up stall just a stone’s throw away at a new hall, which he named Premierland. With room for only one such venue in Whitechapel, it came as no surprise when Wonderland mysteriously burned down on 13 August 1911. Woolf claimed that the fire was likely to have been caused by “an explosion in the lantern-box during a cinematograph rehearsal”, as latterly the venue had also been used to show films. I think it more likely that the fire took place because of the hatred between the two rivals and I concur with the view expressed by John Harding in his excellent book Lonsdale’s Belt, “It can safely be assumed that the eventual destruction of Wonderland by fire in August 1911 was a direct result of the battle, particularly when Jacobs opened up Premierland no more than four months after the ‘mysterious’ fire”.
The last show at Wonderland took place just hours before the fire, with Harry Croxon of West Drayton, a great favourite at the venue, outpointing the Frenchman, Hubert Roc, over ten rounds. Right to the end Wonderland lived up to its lively reputation with Croxon and Roc spending twenty-five minutes in the ring arguing with each other about the ridiculous amount of tape that Roc had applied to his hands. The loss of Wonderland was a huge blow to the sport in London but this not worry Jacobs, who now had things his own way down at Premierland. He did not find it to be quite so easy at his new venue for although the boxing at Premierland was always of good quality, the numbers coming through the door were inadequate to maintain the place, and in June 1914 Jacobs filed for bankruptcy. One of the reasons for his difficulties might have been the emergence of a new venue, situated across the river at Southwark, and which was pulling in the crowds by the thousands. The Ring, Blackfriars, which opened in May 1910, was to become London’s leading small hall venue and was to remain so for the next thirty years, and I will tell its story in a subsequent article.
Between 1900 and 1911 Wonderland and the National Sporting Club, which both catered for opposite ends of the market, dominated the London scene and these were the two venues that the best boxers wanted to appear at. There were plenty of other places across the capital, however, also providing good sport and playing their part in the production of the next generation of fistic talent. With no independent control of the sport boxing promoters were left to their own devices, often applying their own localised regulations, and one can be sure that the rivalry between them was intense and the squabbles between them frequent. Nevertheless, the game in London boomed and the number of shows held in the capital each year totalled between 250 to 370. The calibre of fighter was good at this time and there were plenty of lads from places like Bethnal Green, Hackney, Bermondsey and Lambeth, to fill the bills. Purses were not high, particularly at the bottom of the bill and medicals rarely took place, but this did not worry the young lads who literally queued up to fight.
Miles Templeton
Harris Cashstein did not want to live an ordinary life. Not for him the factory, the dockyard or the uniform of a serving soldier. Harris wanted do things his own way, to make his own money and to be independent. As we would put it today, he wanted to be his own boss. In Edwardian England this was a brave route to take and filled with risk, but Harris was used to that. Born in 1870, he had picked up at least two criminal convictions by the time he was seventeen, one for ‘hounding’, which today would be known as harassment, and one for malicious wounding. Despite being a hard man on the streets he was also a disciplined sportsman, winning medals for running and swimming. In 1889 he supposedly won a mile race in Chicago, USA. How he got there and why he chose not to stay, as so many did, is lost to history. Harris’s brother Joe was known as the ‘King of the Jews’ in the East End, and Cashstein therefore had the right connections, and the personality, to get on in life. The East End was mainly inhabited by Jews during the Edwardian era, with many of them arriving in the UK to escape from the massacres of the Jewish population that were taking place across the Russian Empire. To the average Londoner their names were often incomprehensible and many of them anglicised their names. Gershon Mendeloff, for instance, took the name Ted Kid Lewis and Judiah Bergman became Jack Kid Berg. Harris Cashstein took the name Harry Jacobs.
Jack Woolf was another man with a similar view on life to that of Jacobs. In 1896 Woolf was a publican, running the East London Tavern on the Commercial Road in Whitechapel. He opened a low-brow music hall in a new building which he had constructed next door to the pub where he staged freak shows. Amongst the acts he put on were the ‘untameable lions’, the ‘Queen of the Midgets’ and ‘The Lady with the Lobster Claws’. In 1897 Woolf was approached by Ted White and Fred Hollingworth who wanted to stage boxing tournaments in the building. Its shape, size and location made it the perfect place for such an enterprise and other syndicates soon followed. During 1900 the hall was used for professional boxing sixty-five times by, amongst others, Professor Joe Smith, Charley Bromley, the boxers Bill Chester and Pedlar Palmer, and Harry Wright. These were all big names in the sport and Woolf’s boxing hall started to attract real attention.
Jack Woolf named the place Wonderland. A large rectangular building that seated around three thousand, Wonderland was built on land that had stood empty for seventeen years following the destruction of the East London Theatre in a fire in 1879. Harry Wright, one of Woolf’s promoters and a man who had previously promoted running, cycling and swimming events, was determined to make a go of boxing, and in Harry Jacobs he saw a man who he could trust and do business with, and a partnership was formed. The two men developed a stranglehold on the venue, and they quickly became London’s leading small hall promoters. Jacobs, however, was a difficult man to get along with and his partnership with Wright was dissolved after about five years, but during that time they produced champions by the score.
In 1905 Jacobs became the sole promoter at Wonderland and with his proprietor, Jack Woolf, with whom he had developed a good working relationship, he staged Saturday night shows at the venue every week, all year round. The two men also put on important shows on occasional Mondays and the place was usually packed. The Night Side of London, published in 1902, gives an interesting perspective into what a night’s boxing was like at the venue at the time Jacobs was at the helm with Harry Wright. In describing the sport on an evening that I have identified as 18 January 1902, it states that “There is a large crowd outside the doors waiting for news of the results of the battles taking place within. They have not the necessary shilling or sixpence that gives admission. You pass into the building, at the door stands a solitary policeman. Probably there are two thousand men crammed into the space. Most of them are young, the great majority of them are between twenty and thirty, and nearly all of them are of the recognisable East End types. Your Hebrew of Aldgate is well represented tonight. The programme is a long one – you are to get plenty for your money; three eight-round contests, five of six rounds each a four rounder and a 9st 2lbs competition. There is no disorder, indeed, the orderliness of the crowd is remarkable”. The writer then goes on to describe the various vendors of refreshments selling jellied eels, oranges, ginger beer, lemonade and cigarettes. That evening the eight-round main event was between Jewey Cook of Aldgate and Charlie Knock of Stratford. The two men furnished an exciting bout that ended in a draw to the satisfaction of nobody, “The whole house breaks into an uproar. For a moment it seems as if there were to be a gigantic row, but the tumult ceases as the MC steps into the ring and throws oil on the troubled waters by saying there was no disputing the decision of the referee. Moreover, there would be another opportunity for Charley and Jewey to meet once more, the management would see to that”.
Amongst the very many great fighters that Wonderland featured during the Edwardian era were Pedlar Palmer, Digger Stanley, Cockney Cohen, Young Joseph, Jack Goldswain and Curley Watson. Undoubtedly, the most auspicious occasion took place on 10 February 1908 when the world heavyweight champion, Tommy Burns, defended his title at Wonderland against Jack Palmer, of Newcastle. Just ten weeks beforehand, Burns had knocked out Gunner Moir, the British heavyweight champion, in ten rounds at the National Sporting Club, and it was after this contest that Palmer threw out his challenge. Born in Pelton, Co. Durham, Palmer, whose real name was John Liddell, spent most of his life in Newcastle. His last contest had taken place eleven months previously when he was knocked out by Jack Twin Sullivan in Los Angeles. He was a huge underdog against Burns, and it showed. The Canadian despatched Palmer in four rounds.
In late 1909, Jacobs and Woolf fell out. Jacobs sought an injunction against Woolf to ensure that for the remaining time that he had a contract to use the venue, Woolf must not interfere with the business. This was too much for the owner of the building and Woolf who, unusually for the time had a telephone in his office, told Jacobs that he was not allowed to use it. This made it impossible for Jacobs to conduct business, for he heeded the phone to arrange the contests and to sell tickets, and so he walked away from the place, leaving behind a sworn enemy. For the next eighteen months Woolf continued to operate at Wonderland on his own and Jacobs set up stall just a stone’s throw away at a new hall, which he named Premierland. With room for only one such venue in Whitechapel, it came as no surprise when Wonderland mysteriously burned down on 13 August 1911. Woolf claimed that the fire was likely to have been caused by “an explosion in the lantern-box during a cinematograph rehearsal”, as latterly the venue had also been used to show films. I think it more likely that the fire took place because of the hatred between the two rivals and I concur with the view expressed by John Harding in his excellent book Lonsdale’s Belt, “It can safely be assumed that the eventual destruction of Wonderland by fire in August 1911 was a direct result of the battle, particularly when Jacobs opened up Premierland no more than four months after the ‘mysterious’ fire”.
The last show at Wonderland took place just hours before the fire, with Harry Croxon of West Drayton, a great favourite at the venue, outpointing the Frenchman, Hubert Roc, over ten rounds. Right to the end Wonderland lived up to its lively reputation with Croxon and Roc spending twenty-five minutes in the ring arguing with each other about the ridiculous amount of tape that Roc had applied to his hands. The loss of Wonderland was a huge blow to the sport in London but this not worry Jacobs, who now had things his own way down at Premierland. He did not find it to be quite so easy at his new venue for although the boxing at Premierland was always of good quality, the numbers coming through the door were inadequate to maintain the place, and in June 1914 Jacobs filed for bankruptcy. One of the reasons for his difficulties might have been the emergence of a new venue, situated across the river at Southwark, and which was pulling in the crowds by the thousands. The Ring, Blackfriars, which opened in May 1910, was to become London’s leading small hall venue and was to remain so for the next thirty years, and I will tell its story in a subsequent article.
Between 1900 and 1911 Wonderland and the National Sporting Club, which both catered for opposite ends of the market, dominated the London scene and these were the two venues that the best boxers wanted to appear at. There were plenty of other places across the capital, however, also providing good sport and playing their part in the production of the next generation of fistic talent. With no independent control of the sport boxing promoters were left to their own devices, often applying their own localised regulations, and one can be sure that the rivalry between them was intense and the squabbles between them frequent. Nevertheless, the game in London boomed and the number of shows held in the capital each year totalled between 250 to 370. The calibre of fighter was good at this time and there were plenty of lads from places like Bethnal Green, Hackney, Bermondsey and Lambeth, to fill the bills. Purses were not high, particularly at the bottom of the bill and medicals rarely took place, but this did not worry the young lads who literally queued up to fight.
Miles Templeton
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Caractacus
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Re: Wonderland (London England)
it sounded a bit like it was a forerunner to Hubert's Dime Museum on 42nd street in NYC.
https://londonfilmland.wordpress.com/20 ... wonderland
https://jack-the-ripper-tour.com/genera ... itechapel/
https://londonfilmland.wordpress.com/20 ... wonderland
https://jack-the-ripper-tour.com/genera ... itechapel/
Re: Wonderland (London England)
I love the way Caractacus starts a thread he knows very little about, then someone like Miles spends his valuable time and true , real historical context and history to support the thread.
Then there is no acknowledgement from Caractacus , just some bullshit irrelevant link, no thank you , no continuity. Nothing. Attention seeker. Sorry for the rant but it pisses me off.
Then there is no acknowledgement from Caractacus , just some bullshit irrelevant link, no thank you , no continuity. Nothing. Attention seeker. Sorry for the rant but it pisses me off.