Discover the brutal and fascinating world of Georgian London’s prize ring, from James Figg and Jack Broughton to Daniel Mendoza, Bill Richmond and Tom Molineux. Explore fighting, gambling, celebrity, women in the ring, race, class and the changing culture of boxing in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London.
Host: Hazel Baker
Hazel is an active Londoner, a keen theatre-goer and qualified CIGA London tour guide.
She has won awards for tour guiding and is proud to be involved with some great organisations. She is a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Marketors and am an honorary member of The Leaders Council.
Channel 4: The Orient Express: A Golden Era of Travel (Episode 1). Channel 5’s Walking Wartime Britain(Episode 3) and Yesterday Channel’s The Architecture the Railways Built (Series 3, Episode 7). Het Rampjaar 1672, Afl. 2: Vijand Engeland and Arte.fr Invitation au Voyage, À Chelsea, une femme qui trompe énormément. Yesterday Channel / UKTV Play: The Architecture the Railways Built (Series 3, Episode 7). Yesterday Channel / UKTV Play: Secrets of the London Underground (Series 3, Episode 2) and Secrets of the London Underground (Series 4, Episode 10). NPO (Netherlands): Het Rampjaar 1672 – Afl. 2: Vijand Engeland. Arte France: Invitation au Voyage – À Chelsea, une femme qui trompe énormément
Timestamps:
00:00 The Ring in Georgian London: Fighting, Gambling and Celebrity
05:00 How Newspapers Turned Fighters into Celebrities
10:00 James Figg: Blood, Fame and the Invincible Mr Figg
15:00 Elizabeth Stokes: The Invincible City Championess
20:00 Jack Broughton: The Bruiser Who Changed Boxing
25:00 The Theatre of Georgian Prize Fighting
30:00 Broughton’s Defeat and £10,000 Aristocratic Bets
35:00 Daniel Mendoza: Jewish London and Boxing Celebrity
40:00 Mary Ann Fielding and Women’s Prize Fighting
45:00 Bill Richmond: From Slavery to London’s Prize Ring
50:00 Tom Molineux: Race and the Fight for the English Championship
55:00 The Fancy: Pubs, Gambling and the World Behind Boxing
01:00:00 The Legacy of The Ring in London
The Ring in Georgian London: Fighting, Gambling and Celebrity
Georgian London was a city of extraordinary contrasts. Alongside elegant squares, fashionable shops and grand houses was a rougher world of muddy roads, taverns, gambling, public entertainment and physical spectacle.
In Episode 163 of the London History Podcast, Hazel Baker explores The Ring, the network of fighters, trainers, promoters, publicans, gamblers, patrons, journalists and spectators that transformed fighting into a major form of entertainment in Georgian and Regency London.
The story begins on the northern edge of eighteenth-century London, around Oxford Road and Marybone Fields, where James Figg established his famous amphitheatre. From there, the episode follows the development of prize fighting through some of the most remarkable characters in London’s sporting history.
James Figg and the Birth of the Prize Ring
James Figg was one of the most celebrated fighters of early eighteenth-century London. Known for his expertise with the sword, cudgel, quarterstaff and fists, Figg presented fighting as both a skill and a spectacle.
Around 1724, he established an amphitheatre in Oxford Road, Marybone Fields. This was more than a place for spontaneous fights. It was a purpose-built commercial venue with seating, programmes and paying spectators.
Figg became known as the “Invincible Mr Figg”, and his reputation extended well beyond the fighting crowd. He was painted by William Hogarth and became part of the wider culture of Georgian celebrity.
His amphitheatre helped establish a model in which fighters could become public figures, newspapers could promote contests, spectators could pay to watch them, and gamblers could stake money on the outcome.
Women in the Georgian Ring
Women were not simply spectators in the early history of prize fighting.
The episode explores the remarkable careers of Elizabeth Wilkinson, later Elizabeth Stokes, and other female fighters who challenged one another publicly, fought for prize money and used newspapers to promote their contests.
Elizabeth Wilkinson famously challenged Hannah Highfield to a boxing match for three guineas. Later, as Elizabeth Stokes, she became known as the “Invincible City Championess” and accepted further challenges, including one from Anne Field of Stoke Newington for £10.
Women could attract crowds, develop public reputations and participate in the same commercial culture of challenges, betting and spectacle as male fighters.
Their stories also reveal the limitations of the historical record. Female fighters were often described as curiosities or novelties, meaning their histories have survived in scattered newspaper reports rather than the extensive biographies and sporting histories afforded to male champions.
Jack Broughton and the Seven Rules of Boxing
After James Figg’s death, Jack Broughton, known as “The Bruiser”, became one of the most important figures in the prize ring.
A former Thames waterman, Broughton opened his own amphitheatre in Oxford Road in 1743, close to Figg’s former establishment.
In the same year, he published his famous Seven Rules for Boxing.
The rules introduced greater structure to prize fighting. A round ended when a fighter was knocked down, and he had 30 seconds to return to the scratch. Striking below the waist and hitting an opponent while he was down were prohibited.
These rules did not make prize fighting safe by modern standards, but they helped transform fighting into a more organised and commercially viable spectacle. Rules made contests easier for spectators to understand, newspapers to report and gamblers to follow.
Boxing Becomes Fashionable
Broughton also recognised that boxing could appeal to a very different audience.
In 1747, he opened a boxing school in the Haymarket where fashionable gentlemen could learn using padded gloves known as mufflers.
The contrast was striking. Bare-knuckle prize fighters could attract crowds interested in blood, danger and gambling, while wealthy gentlemen could learn boxing as exercise, discipline and fashionable masculine accomplishment.
This transformation would continue throughout the eighteenth century as boxing increasingly presented itself as an art and a technical skill rather than simply an act of violence.
Broughton’s Defeat and the Power of Gambling
Broughton’s reputation eventually suffered a dramatic blow when he was defeated by John Slack, known as “The Butcher”.
The fight demonstrated the enormous financial stakes surrounding prize fighting. Slack reportedly won a £600 prize, while the Duke of Cumberland was said to have lost £10,000 betting on Broughton.
The defeat also revealed the fragility of sporting celebrity. Broughton’s reputation had been built around his mastery and near-invincibility, but one defeat could completely change the public narrative.
When the Ring Left London
Prize fighting did not disappear when authorities began to intervene.
Concerns about disorder, drinking, gambling and large gatherings made public fighting increasingly difficult to stage openly in central London. As a result, important contests increasingly moved outside the capital into fields and areas where legal jurisdictions were more complicated.
Yet London remained the centre of the fighting world.
The capital continued to provide the newspapers, printers, wealthy patrons, betting networks, trainers, public houses, spectators and publicity that made the sport possible.
The fight might take place outside London, but the network behind the fight remained firmly connected to the capital.
Daniel Mendoza and the Art of Boxing
The episode then moves into the later Georgian period and the remarkable career of Daniel Mendoza.
Born in Aldgate in 1764 to a Portuguese Jewish family, Mendoza became famous for a style based on speed, movement, defence and counterattack rather than simply physical strength.
His approach became known as the “School of Mendoza”, reflecting the growing idea that boxing could be taught systematically.
His rivalry with Richard Humphries, known as “The Gentleman”, became one of the great sporting dramas of the period. Their contests attracted enormous crowds, while Mendoza’s Jewish identity made him both a celebrated figure within Jewish London and a target of the antisemitism of Georgian Britain.
Mendoza also helped make boxing more respectable. He established boxing academies and published The Art of Boxing in 1789. At the Lyceum on the Strand, he presented boxing as an art that could be made as neat and disciplined as fencing.
Boxing was increasingly promoted as:
- A technical discipline
- A form of exercise
- An art of attack and defence
- A fashionable accomplishment
- A form of masculine self-improvement
Women’s Prize Fighting in the 1790s
Women continued to participate in the fighting world into the late eighteenth century.
In 1795, Mary Ann Fielding of Whitechapel fought another woman in a field near the New Road, now Euston Road. The contest reportedly lasted around an hour and 20 minutes.
The fight is particularly fascinating because Fielding was seconded by John Jackson, while her opponent was seconded by Daniel Mendoza.
The event brought together women’s prize fighting, Jewish London, Whitechapel, famous male fighters, prize money and a large sporting audience. By the 1790s, female prize fighting was becoming less common and increasingly treated as a curiosity, but women had not disappeared from the fighting world.
Gentleman John Jackson, Lord Byron and the West End
The story then moves from the rougher fighting venues of London’s northern edge to fashionable Bond Street in Mayfair.
After defeating Mendoza in 1795, Gentleman John Jackson established a boxing academy at 13 Bond Street, attracting fashionable gentlemen and aristocrats.
Among his pupils was Lord Byron, whose journals reveal how boxing had become part of elite male exercise. Byron sparred with Jackson using mufflers and affectionately described him as his “corporeal pastor and master”.
Boxing had travelled a long way from the amphitheatres of Marybone Fields. It was now being incorporated into fashionable West End culture.
The Fives Court and Bill Richmond
The Fives Court on St Martin’s Street in Leicester Fields became an important venue for boxing exhibitions between 1802 and 1826.
Its gloved exhibitions presented boxing as a display of skill and technique, allowing fashionable audiences to watch without the full brutality of a bare-knuckle prize fight.
Nearby was the Horse and Dolphin pub, run by Bill Richmond, one of the most remarkable figures in the history of Georgian London’s prize ring.
Richmond was born into slavery on Staten Island in 1763. He later came to Britain, trained as a cabinet maker and eventually entered the fighting world.
Known for his movement, defence and technical ability, Richmond became a fighter, trainer and publican. His story provides an important window into Black London, while also revealing the racism and discrimination that shaped Georgian Britain.
Tom Molineux, Slavery and the Atlantic World
Richmond later became associated with another extraordinary fighter, Tom Molineux, who had been born into slavery in Virginia and arrived in Britain in 1809.
Calling himself the “Champion of America”, Molineux challenged the English champion Tom Cribb.
Their first fight in December 1810 attracted an enormous crowd, while their 1811 rematch drew an estimated 15,000–20,000 spectators.
Molineux’s story connects the London prize ring with much wider histories of slavery, race, migration, America, Britain and empire.
His challenge to Cribb was more than a sporting contest. It was also a public claim to belonging in British society. Despite his popularity and considerable sporting reputation, Molineux faced racist attitudes both inside and outside the ring.
The Fancy: The World Behind the Fighters
By the Regency period, prize fighting had developed its own culture and infrastructure known as the Fancy.
The Fancy included:
- Fighters and trainers
- Publicans
- Printers and journalists
- Gamblers
- Wealthy patrons
- Ticket sellers
- Sporting followers
- Amateur boxers
- Fashionable spectators
London’s pubs were at the heart of this network. They could function as clubhouses, betting rooms, meeting places, newsrooms and locations where fight stakes were deposited.
The Castle Tavern on High Holborn became an important headquarters of the prize ring, while fighters such as Tom Cribb and Jem Belcher became associated with public houses across London.
The pub was therefore much more than a place to drink. It was part of the infrastructure that allowed the prize-fighting world to operate.
The Dark Side of Boxing Celebrity
The glamour of the Ring came at a considerable cost.
Fighters risked serious injury and long-term damage, while many struggled financially after their careers ended. Some died in poverty, debt or poor health.
The same system that created celebrity and generated money for promoters, publicans, printers and patrons could leave the fighters themselves vulnerable.
The episode therefore avoids romanticising the Ring. Its history is one of violence and exploitation, but also of skill, ambition, celebrity and social mobility.
Class, Race, Gender and London History
The history of the Ring reveals the complexities of Georgian London.
Different social groups could gather around the same spectacle, but this did not make them equals. Aristocrats could place enormous bets, gentlemen could learn boxing in fashionable academies, and working men could fight for prize money.
Women could challenge opponents and fight publicly, although their participation became increasingly marginalised.
The stories of Daniel Mendoza, Bill Richmond and Tom Molineux also connect the prize ring with Jewish London, Black London, slavery, migration and empire.
These are not side stories. They are an essential part of London’s history.
Who Gets Remembered?
One of the episode’s most important questions is who gets remembered?
Male champions such as James Figg, Jack Broughton, Daniel Mendoza, Bill Richmond and Tom Cribb left behind biographies, portraits, pub signs and extensive sporting histories.
Women such as Elizabeth Wilkinson, Elizabeth Stokes, Hannah Highfield, Anne Field and Mary Ann Fielding are much harder to recover. Their stories often survive only through newspaper advertisements, brief reports and later histories.
The gaps in the archive therefore tell us something about historical memory: the people who were considered worth recording were not necessarily the only people shaping London’s history.
The Ring and London’s Changing Landscape
The story of the Ring is also a story about London’s physical transformation.
What began in the fields around Oxford Road and Marybone Fields developed into purpose-built amphitheatres, taverns, academies and fashionable West End venues. As London expanded, the landscape that once accommodated the fighting world disappeared beneath streets, buildings and modern development.
Today, it can be difficult to imagine James Figg’s amphitheatre around Oxford Street. Yet the history of the Ring remains embedded in the changing geography of the capital.
The episode reveals how Georgian London transformed fighting into a form of mass entertainment and how the Ring became a window into the city’s class structure, celebrity culture, gender relations, race, religion, migration and changing urban landscape.
