Ted Hollier

Name: Ted Hollier
Hometown: Peckham, London, United Kingdom
Birthplace: Camberwell, London, United Kingdom
Promoter: Record

Article By Derek Kinrade

TED HOLLIER WAS A CELEBRATED BOXING INSTRUCTOR OF THE LATE VICTORIAN ERA WHO WAS FAMED IN SOUTH-EAST LONDON.

But little is known about the “genial and popular” man, who would regularly hold bouts at his former home on Peckham’s Rosemary Road

Information about Edward “Ted” Hollier (1862- 1915) is limited. The 1871 census had him living at 249 Albany Road, Camberwell, with his father Emmanuel, aged 39, a grocer from Oxford; mother Emma, aged 33, from Chelsea; grandmother Jane Taylor, aged 69, from Kingston; and sister Isabella, aged seven.

By 1881 the family were living at 16 Tilson Road, Camberwell, but Ted had moved on. He married Emma Caroline Bowles in 1885, and we next pick them up in the 1891 census living at 59 Rosemary Road in Peckham. By this time Ted was working as a warehouseman and had two children: Ethel, aged seven, and Gertrude, aged three.

By 1901, his parents were also living on Rosemary Road, at number 5, his father on parochial relief. Ted, still at number 59, is recorded as a “skin dresser and teacher of boxing”. Which brings me to the point; for it was his association with the world of pugilism that made his name.

Ted’s was a controversial career at the time. Stan Shipley, writing in the Journal of Socialist Historians tells us: “Prizefighting, with bare knuckles or skintight gloves, had long been illegal by the 1880s,” adding: “Indeed in this transitional decade the police often raided professional boxing shows to test their legality in the courts.”

We can only speculate as to the possibility that Ted’s initiation to the sport was illegal and therefore went unreported, but it would account for the fact that his name first appeared in Sporting Life only in August 1888, by which time he was an instructor at the Eagle Boxing Club, Trafalgar Road, of which the proprietor was “Mrs Bowles”, perhaps his mother-in-law.

This was the precursor of more than 700 reports in which Ted’s name appeared in numerous guises. He was frequently referred to as an instructor, occasionally as a contestant (sometimes in exhibitions), as a promoter (as early as September 1888), a judge, master of ceremonies, manager and second. Many of the suggested bouts were advertised conditionally, on the possibility that “Ted Hollier will offer a prize”.

The fights took place at “small halls”, mostly a network of boxing clubs, pubs and saloons that were dotted across Peckham, Camberwell, Bermondsey, Walworth and other parts of south-east London; in low-cost, working-class settings, prudently regulated.

A September 1888 issue of Sporting Life specifically advertised a fight “under Queensbury rules” for a silver cup at the General Moore – formerly the Corunna Music Hall, Stewards’ Lane, Battersea Park Road.

By 1892, Ted was referred to as “Professor” and was very much a local favourite. But before that, in April 1891, the Sporting Life made the first mention of a special venue: “On Saturday evening, despite the strong counter-attractions of Her Majesty’s, the Oval, and elsewhere, Hollier’s Gymnasium was literally packed to witness one of the best shows… ever seen.”

It was the first night of many, at a location – 59 Rosemary Road – that proved to be “increasingly popular and well managed”.

Which part of Ted’s home accommodated a boxing ring, with room for an enthusiastic audience to boot, is uncertain. Some say it was in the back garden.

The Daily Herald, much later, remembering the gymnasium’s demise, put it in an unlikely “back kitchen”. Stan Shipley, in the article previously mentioned, relates that Ted charged sixpence and a shilling for admission to his shows, and sets out in some detail the costs and prize money typically involved.

The enterprise was clearly not hugely profitable, a finding that shouts that more than money was at stake in boxing at this grassroots level, indeed perhaps at any level: the vanity of prestige, the esteem of being seen as a conquering hero.

Hollier’s Gymnasium prospered into the 20th century. The Sporting Life in 1902 announced: “The company on Saturday night [April 26] at this boxing saloon was again a numerous one.”

There followed details of the bouts, besides which there had been “some exhibition boxing of an unusual character… most of the lads being pupils of its professor”, who “controlled the arrangements in hand”.

But, thereafter, suddenly and mysteriously, Ted’s name disappeared from the sporting media. The 1911 census had him living at 10 Limetree Terrace on Pitt Street in Peckham. He died, in obscurity, in 1915, aged only 52.