Bristol's Regency pugalists
It’s too easy to forget that in boxing’s raw, brave, and at times brutal history, Bristol once had no serious rival to challenge its supremacy.
In those extraordinary bare-knuckle days of 200 years ago, royalty, aristocrats and other wealthy celebrities, came to watch Bristol’s fighters and lay huge bets on the bloody outcome.
They, and their followers, were known as “The Fancy.”
Five world champions, all from Bristol, stepped into the improvised rings to parade their crude skills and immense courage.
Cheered on by enormous crowds the one-time butcher’s boys and dock labourers would meet to slug it out, bare fisted, until they could no longer stand.
Many had served their tough apprenticeships at St James’s fair and Lawford’s gate or on Durdham Down and Horfield Common.
The timbered Hatchet pub in Frogmore street, still standing today, was a pugalist stronghold.
The atmosphere could be raucous, seedy and heavy with corruption from those laying unrealistic bets.
The Bristol champs – Tom Cribb, Jem Belcher, Henry (the “Game Chicken”) Pearce, John Gully and Ben Brain – were renowned for their unassuming qualities as young, uninhibited fighters.
Their stamina was as remarkable as their personalities.
Writer Jack Allen is horrified that their deeds have not been recognised more appropriately.
“They were among the most famous celebrities in the land, held in the highest esteem” he says.
“Yet they are almost unknown in the city today.
“No plaque, no statue . . . ”
Bristol’s seeming disregard for its bare-knuckle title-holders bothers him and he hopes his book will rectify the omission.
In their different ways, quiet or flamboyant, the Bristol boxers achieved instant fame and, for some, wealth.
Sadly one died at 30 and another at 32.
But it would be difficult to match the lifestyle, for instance, of landlord’s son, John Gully, from Wick, whose race horses went on to win the Derby, Oaks and St Leger.
In confirming his stature, he ended up as a Member of Parliament.
Jack Allen also recounts the remarkable, but little known story, of sportsman and trainer, Captain Robert Barclay.
The Bristol Boys - the untold story of Bristol’s champion boxers by Jack Allen is published by Redcliffe Press at £7.95
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