Pugilism Archives | Lucienne Boyce

Pugs, Bruisers and the Fancy: The Language of Pugilism

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, bare knuckle boxing was one of Britain’s most popular sports. It had its own slang: it was the world of the Fancy, of milling …

Pugs, Roos and Amazonians: Some Lesser Known Boxing Matches of the Eighteenth Century

In eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain, bare-knuckle boxing was a popular sport which drew followers from across the social spectrum, from the Prince of Wales and the aristocracy down. Charles …

The Bristol Boys: The Bare Knuckle Champions and The Hatchet Inn

The Hatchet Inn on Frogmore Street in Bristol is all that remains of a row of seventeenth-century timbered houses dating back to 1606 – making it one of the city’s …

Dickens and Chickens

On 17 April 1860, in fields near Farnborough, Charles Dickens joined an audience amongst whom were the Prince of Wales and the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, as well as a …

Cribb’s Parlour: Tom Cribb

I’m an inveterate English Heritage blue-plaque spotter – and if I’d missed this one in Panton Street, Haymarket, London, the pub sign would have been enough to tell me that …

The Royale, Bush Theatre, London

When men campaigning for parliamentary reform in the eighteenth century planned to hold public meetings in defiance of government attempts to silence them, they were warned that they would be …