PRIZE FIGHTING AS PRACTISED BY WOMEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18468, 21 May 1928, Page 4

PRIZE FIGHTING AS PRACTISED BY WOMEN.

PRECAUTIONS TAKEN TO STOP SCRATCHING. As an exercise boxing with regulation gloves has for many years been practised by women in Great Britain, America, France and Germany, writes Harry E. Cleveland in “ Sporting Life.” Public exhibition sparring has also been submitted by members of the gentle sex, but boxing is generally recognised as a man’s sport, and little, if any, desire has been manifested to_ see females engage in an arranged fight with the mittens. On the last occasion of an attempted promotion of such an event the storm of objection raised to it gave a fair indication of the spirit in which these affairs were viewed. It is a mistake to suppose that there never have been public matches between women boxers in England. There have been many such, and under conditions that would be impossible now adays. In the dark ages of practically every then known sport popular not only with the rabble but with members of the reigning families and of the aristocracy, brutality was encouraged under the impression that sanguinary sights provided by bull and bear baiting, and dog fighting caused Englishmen to be callous to suffering, and made good soldiers or sailors of them in the many wars waged during the reign of the first three Georges. Public executions, and the drawing and quartering of malefactors before almost the breath had left their bodies, were the occasions for holiday making, so that the populace fairly supped on horrors. Is it then a matter for surprise, viewing these happenings over a vista of a couple of hundred years ago, that prize fights between women were not only permitted but were encouraged! From the “ London Journal ’’ of June, 1722, the following is culled: “ Boxing in public at the Bear Garden is what has lately obtained very much among the men; but until last week we never heard of women being engaged that way, when two of the feminine gender appeared for the first time on the theatre of war at Hockley-in-the-Hole, and maintained the battle with great, valour for a long time, to the no small satisfaction of the spectators.”

To Prevent Scratching. This is the first professional female pugilistic contest on record, and it arose from a challenge issued by Elizabeth Wilkinson, of Clerkenwell, to Hannah Hyfield, for three guineas, anti ‘one of the conditions stipulated that each woman was to hold half a crown in each hand, presumably to prevent scratching and hair pulling, and the first woman to drop the money was to be adjudged the loser of the battle. Hannah Hvfield, who hailed from Newgate Market, promptly replied to the challenge, in which she declared her intention of giving Mrs Wilkinson, “God willing, more blows than words. She may expect a good thumping”! Elizabeth Wilkinson won the day, but no details of the encounter are available. In the same year she also beat with her fists a lady pugilist from Billingsgate, which naturally suggests that some “high” talking was indulged in during the progress of the combat, for even in those far-off days it was usual, when a person excelled in coarse language to say of him or her: “He (or she) swears like a Billingsgate fishwife ! ” Elizabeth Wilkinson does not appear to have been happily mated in her first matrimonial venture, as she married one Robert Wilkinson, who was a stage fighter at Hockley-in-the-Hole, which was situated near Clerkenwell Green. Robert must have been a shiftless, good-for-nothing fellow, as he joined a gang of footpads and murderers, and

even among them was singled out as a perpetrator of cruel and bloody acts. He was later arrested for complicity in the murder of a poor Chelsea pensioner. In company with James Lincoln and Thomas Wilson, two members of the gang, Robert Wilkinson, at the age of 35 years, was hanged at Tyburn on July 26. 1722. Between the “turning off” of her first husband on “the leafless tree” and the year 1728, Elizabeth Wilkinson married a Mr Stokes, the proprietor of a boxing booth in Islington Road. In the London “Daily Post” of July 7, 1725, appeared this advertisement: “At Mr Stokes’s amphitheatre in Islington Road this present Monday, being the seventh day of October, will be a complete boxing match between the two following ehampionesses.” Then followed the challenge from “Ann Field, of Stoke Newington, ass driver,” who, having been affronted by “Mrs Stokes, styled the European championess,” invited her to a trial of her best skill in boxing for £lO. Then followed much flowery language not in use in present-day wording of challenges.

“Champioftesses.” Elizabeth Stokes replied in equally choice terms, accepting the challenge and ending up with “and doubt not that the blows I shall present her with will be more difficult for her to digest than she ever gave her asses.” There was much tumult among the spectators during the progress of the Amazonian combat, as the partisans of each principal rallied to their favourites.

Eventually Mrs Stokes won, and probably so established her position as “championess” that other women boxers fought shy of her. She apparently retired undefeated.

These encounters seem to have raised the spirit of emulation among other members of the gentle sex. and fights were staged at other places in the Metropolis, including “the Boarded House in Marybone Fields,” then in the possession of Figg, the champion prize fighter qf England. A boxing match with naked fists between two females is referred to in an old and scarce book on pugilism. In this case the principals were Mary Ann Fielding, of Whitechapel, and a Jewess, of Wentworth Street, and the stakes were two guineas aside. It took place near the New Road, Islington, on Saturday, June 5, 1795, and Mrs Fielding won after the battle had lasted an hour and twenty minutes. “The Sporting Magazine” of December, 1811, reports a pitched battle on Wormwood Scrubs between Molly Flower and Nanny Gent “for a new shawl and a pint of gin.” The lastnamed lady retired in the thirteenth round. These disgraceful exhibitions caused outcry among the better class of members of the community, and public opinion obtained their almost total suppression, but well within the memory of living people, battles have been waged between females, for money or in kind, in the manufacturing districts of the Midlands and North of England.