The king of Marylebone Plains
The colourful, violent tale of James Figg, a fighter without equal in early Georgian London, who from his Marylebone amphitheatre punched, cudgelled and hacked his way to national celebrity
Nobody really knows exactly when James Figg was born. Being from a poor, illiterate agricultural family in the small Oxfordshire town of Thame, his birth wasn’t notable enough to be properly recorded. It was probably 1695, maybe earlier. But by the time of his death in 1734, and his burial in the grounds of the St Marylebone parish church, Figg had managed to batter his way firmly into the national consciousness as the most brutal and successful prize fighter in Britain.
Details of his early life are scarce, but it seems that Figg initially made a living fighting for money at local fairs, before his growing reputation and the diminishing ranks of local lads stupid enough to share a ring with him forced the young bruiser to head for London. The first mention of his exploits in the capital comes from an advert in the Daily Courant from June 1714, which suggests that he was a pupil of one Timothy Buck of Clare Market, off The Strand. Around the same time, he appeared, muscles rippling, in a sketch by the portrait artist Jonathan Richardson. Figg soon caught the eye of the Earl of Peterborough, under whose patronage he was able to open an arena in Marylebone Fields, just north of Oxford Street. The arena, known as either Figg’s Amphitheatre or the Boarded House, became home to an academy at which Figg taught other young fighters. In the centre was a ring—demarcated with wooden boards rather than ropes—in which Figg fought regular bouts in front of large, noisy, blood-thirsty, drunken crowds.
During the 1720s Figg became a celebrity of huge public standing. This was the result partly of the savage beatings he handed out to most of his opponents, and partly of his publicity material being produced by the great painter, engraver and satirist William Hogarth. Hogarth not only designed Figg’s flyers (“James Figg—Master of the Noble Science of Defence”) but also managed to sneak Figg’s likeness into some of his most famous works of art. There he is in the second plate of A Rake’s Progress, holding a pair of quarterstaffs and looking distinctly menacing. And there he is again in Southwark Fair—a depiction of the annual festival in Borough at which Figg would earn easy money by offering to fight any member of the public cocky enough and drunk enough to want to take him on. In Hogarth’s painting Figg can be seen wielding a sword while sitting on a horse, waiting patiently for a challenge.
Figg was a big man with a shaven head and an imposingly muscular physique. Pierce Egan, one of the first historians of pugilism, described the fighter in his 1812 Boxiana as being “more indebted to strength and courage for his success in the battlefield than to the effects of genius”. At a time when prize fights often consisted of a round of sword fighting, a round of cudgels and a round of boxing, Figg was far more technically accomplished with weaponry than he was with his fists. Captain John Godfrey, who was taught to fight by Figg and was himself a talented swordsman, wrote of his mentor: “Figg was the Atlas of the sword, and may he remain the gladiating statue! In him, strength, resolution and unparalleled judgement conspired to form a matchless master.” He heaped praise upon Figg’s use of “time and measure” and described his way with a sword as “charming”.
According to Egan, Figg’s way with his fists was far less elegant: “If his methods of fighting were subject to the criticism of the present day, he would be denominated more of a slaughterer than a neat and finished pugilist.” But early 18th century boxing wasn’t the subtle chess match of gloved fists and tight defences that characterise the modern sport. Instead it was a brutal bare-knuckle brawl in which fighters were expected to use their elbows and fingers, throw their opponents to the floor and land punches and kicks even after their opponents were down and out.
This was a form of boxing in which blood and broken bones were accepted, even demanded. Godfrey, in his book A Treatise Upon the Useful Science of Defence, recommended that boxers aim their punches between the eyebrows as this causes the eyelids to swell, obstructing the sight. “The man thus indecently treated and artfully hoodwinked,” he wrote, “is then beat about at his adversary’s discretion.” He also advised that blows to the stomach “may be attended with a vomiting of blood”. Queensbury Rules this wasn’t.
Back-sword fighting was a brutal pursuit which made bare knuckle brawling look like a bit of a picnic. The back-sword was a small one-sided blade designed for slashing and cutting, far removed from the elegant movements associated with fencing. Fighters wore no protective clothing, with the result that Figg’s body was a web of scar tissue. Godfrey recounts a back-sword bout between William Gill—one of Figg’s pupils—and an Irishman named Butler. Gill was renowned for aiming at his opponents’ legs, and on this occasion he wounded the Irishman with a cut “more severe and deep” than Godfrey had ever seen before. “His leg was laid quite open, his calf falling down to his ankle.” Butler was stitched up but surgeons who operated on lowly brawlers weren’t up to much. The wound became infected and after a botched amputation the Irishman “soon expired”. In such circumstances, the fact that Figg retired with all his limbs in place was proof of his considerable skill.
The most famous of Figg’s hundreds of fights were with Ned Sutton, a pipe maker from Gravesend—“a resolute, pushing, awkward swordsman,” according to Godfrey. Figg vs Sutton was the Ali vs Frazier of its day. The first time they fought, Sutton won—the only recorded instance of Figg ever losing a fight. A rematch was arranged in which Figg exacted his revenge, setting up a third bout in 1725, to be held at the Boarded House.
The fight was attended by John Byrom, a well-known poet whose works were often published in the Spectator. According to Byrom, in a poem published soon afterwards and reprinted in the London Journal in 1727 to mark yet another epic rematch, the bout started with a round of the back-sword, during which Figg—after breaking his own sword with a stroke so brutal it would have “discarded” Sutton’s head had it not been deflected—soon found himself wounded in the side, an injury he treated with “sullen disdain” and some smart-mouthed banter with the crowd. After breaking for a quick dram of strong booze, the fighters resumed, with Sutton taking a cut on the arm. Following a further break, they returned with cudgels. Finally, after a punishing exchange of blows, Figg made the breakthrough: “So Jove told the gods he had made a decree, / That Figg should hit Sutton a stroke on the knee. / Tho’ Sutton, disabled as soon as he hit him, / Would still have fought on, but Jove would not permit him; / ‘Twas his fate, not his fault, that constrain’d him to yield, / And thus the great Figg became lord of the field.”
Figg retired from fighting in 1730, after which he devoted his time to passing on some of his skills to the students who flooded to his academy. Godfrey rated him as the best teacher around: “I chose to go mostly to Figg partly as I knew him to be the ablest master and partly as he was of a rugged temper and would spare no man, high or low, who took up stick against him.” It was a painful experience: “I purchased my knowledge with many a broken head and bruise in every part of me.”
As well as being a fighter, teacher and national celebrity, Figg was also a bit of a promoter—an early Don King, but with far less hair. One of the most famous fights of the era was arranged by Figg in 1725—an epic scrap between a boxer from Venice known imaginatively as Gondolier and a grazier named Bob Whitaker. The fight came about through a wager made at Slaughter’s coffee house between a foreigner, who was talking up the Venetian, and an English gentleman who thought this a slight on Blighty.
The Englishman “sent for Figg to procure a proper man for him”. On arriving at the coffee shop, Figg was warned that the Venetian was a “man of extraordinary strength and famous for breaking the jaw-bone in boxing”. His response was almost King-like in its sass: “I do not know, master, but he may break one of his own countrymen’s jawbones with his fist; but I will bring him a man and he shall not break his jaw-bone with a sledge-hammer in his hand.”
Figg chose Whitaker—“a hardy fellow and would bear a deal of beating”. According to the London Journal, Whitaker was “entertained at Mr Figg’s house for instruction and proper diet till the day of battle”. The fight caught the public imagination, and thousands of pounds were wagered: “In a word, the public daily enter into this affair with so much passion for the event, and gentlemen are so warm on both sides, that it looks like a national concern.”
On the night of the fight, Figg’s Amphitheatre was filled to the brim with what Godfrey called “a splendid company, the politest house of that kind I ever saw”. The high class of the crowd at first worked painfully to Whitaker’s disadvantage. Early in the fight the muscular Italian struck the Englishman so hard that he was knocked off the stage. “Whitaker’s misfortune,” wrote Godfrey, “was then the grandeur of the company, on which account they suffered no common people in, that usually sit on the ground and line the stage round. It was then all clear and Whitaker had nothing to stop him but the bottom.”
After scrambling back into the ring the Englishman soon twigged that Gondolier’s superior reach was causing him trouble, so he moved inside to fight up close. “He, with a little stoop, ran boldly in beyond the heavy mallet, and with one English peg in the stomach (quite a new thing to foreigners) brought him on his breech.” The Italian decided that “the blow carried too much of the English rudeness for him to bear”, and the yellow-bellied foreigner threw in the towel.
Figg’s fighters weren’t always men. Fights between women were a huge draw, with the most famous female brawler being Mrs Stokes, the self-proclaimed ‘Invincible City Championess’. In 1725, Figg hosted a battle between Mrs Stokes and an Irish boxer. An advertisement in Mist’s Journal ramped up the excitement: “The gentlemen of Ireland have been long picking out an Hibernian heroine to match Mrs Stokes; there is now one arrived here, who, by her make and stature, seems mighty enough to eat her up.” It was expected to be a well-attended fight: “This being like to prove a notable and diverting engagement, it’s not doubted but abundance of gentlemen will crowd to Mr Figg’s Amphitheatre.”
Boxing wasn’t the only show on the bill at Figg’s place. Paying customers were also entertained by extraordinary displays of barbarity against animals. An advertisement in a 1721 edition of the Weekly News—a journal specialising in foreign affairs coverage—promises a mind boggling spectacle: “At the Boarded House in Marybone-Fields on Monday 24 of this infant July will be a match fought between the wild and savage panther and 12 English dogs.” The ad goes on to explain that this bout resulted from the boasts of an unnamed foreigner who had been putting it about around London that a panther could easily take on any number of British dogs. Stung by this insult to his country’s canine stock, an English gentleman strongly objected. Today, this kind of pub debate would result in a few spilled pints and an agreement to disagree. In 18th century London it led instead to the procuring of a panther (god knows where from), the hiring of an arena and the collection of a £300 purse.
The advertisement then spirals off into a tragicomic list of the other entertainments on offer in the arena on the same evening. “NB, also a bear to be baited and a mad green bull to be turn’d loose in the gaming place with fireworks all over him and bull dogs after him, a dog to be drawn up with fireworks in the middle of the yard and an ass to be baited on the same stage.” Let me run that by you again: after watching a panther fight 12 dogs, the crowd would be entertained by a bear being attacked, a bull being killed by dogs, and then a dog being blown apart with fireworks. And finally, for a nice gentle coda, a donkey would be slaughtered. Happy days.
All this violence did have its critics and there were frequent bouts of moral panic played out in London’s burgeoning new journals and newspapers. In 1724 the Daily Journal attacked the boxing arenas “for calling raw tradesmen out of their shops, students from their books, apprentices and hired servants, and even his Majesty’s soldiers from their duty, to attend at the rude and savage diversions, where prophaneness reigns triumphantly, vollies of the most dreadful oaths being pour’d out incessantly, and picking of pockets practic’d openly with impunity”. The Journal’s solution to this growing social problem was a novel one, and one that was never likely to succeed: “Mr Jones, the famous High-Constable of Holborn, in whose division this nuisance chiefly lies, will speedily be commission’d to take one single bout at staff with this terrible Mr Figg, he being as well vers’d in the true exercise of that weapon as Mr Figg, or any of his fraternity.” But Mr Jones and his moral crusaders had about as much chance of success in Mr Figg’s notorious arena as that poor donkey.
From Marylebone Journal: Blasts from the Past
Illustration: Matthew Hancock
