Jack Broughton: The Father of Prizefighting
In early 18th century England, the very idea of child labor laws was still decades away. It would be another century before even the most tentative laws would be passed, prohibiting children under nine from working and limiting children between nine and 16 to 60 hours a week.
So it was hardly unusual when Jack Broughton, age 12, and his 10-year-old sister, left their alcoholic father and step-mother to fend for themselves. What would be unusual, however, would be to expect either of them to ever rise above a state of near destitution.
Broughton and his sister moved from their native Gloucestershire to Bristol and found work. When she was 18, Broughton’s sister was married off to a respectable mechanic. The rugged, six-foot tall Broughton was in London by this time, serving as an apprentice waterman, rowing passengers along the Thames. His natural athleticism and power would become obvious to all when he won the Dogget’s Coat and Badge Race, a rowing event that still exists to this day. The prize for that race is a red coat with a badge displaying the horse of the House of Hanover. Perhaps it was an omen, for the members of the British royal family were to be intimately involved in the astonishing rise in wealth and social standing that Broughton was destined to experience.
Broughton might have been the swiftest rower in London, but his true greatness would be found in the world of fighting. In his 20s, he began to train at James Figg’s famous Amphitheatre and would eventually far surpass he famed teacher in greatness, becoming arguably the most important figure in the history of the sport.
Broughton’s major professional break would come when he bested the cocky, young Prince William in a contest with the small sword. The second son of George II, William had been trained as a soldier from his youth and expected as a matter of course to handle any commoner. Broughton gave him a reality check, and the young Prince saw the obvious investment potential in becoming Broughton’s backer. He would set up Broughton with his own academy and also recommend him as a bodyguard to the king himself. Broughton also did at least some work as hired muscle during contentious elections. It was a rough era and ideas of true political democracy still vague at best.
Figg has been an acknowledged genius within the realm of the defensive arts, but Broughton was to surpass him. Figg’s physical power had allowed him to dominate opponents and his innate athleticism had made it possible for him to control the range and tempo of engagement. Broughton had Figg’s physical tools, but also possessed a calculating mind that helped him bring more science to bear on the activity of prizefighting.
Figg and other earlier fighters relied heavily upon mauling and eye-gouging opponents in a clinch, then throwing them and “purring” (kicking) them once they were down and dazed on the floor . While Broughton was an expert at all these tactics, he specialized in using his fists, therefore truly advancing boxing as an art. Broughton’s defensive guard was marveled at and the accuracy of his counter punching made him impossible to beat. Broughton was an outstanding body puncher, and his shot to beneath the floating rib was called “Broughton’s mark.” He specialized in what Pierce Egan refers to as “milling in retreat,” which means, like modern fighters such as Juan Manuel Marquez or Floyd Mayweather, he used movement to draw his opponents forward aggressively, into brutal traps.
While Figg had been revered by the aristocratic sporting men as a master of his own realm, they had otherwise seen him as a rough-hewn and illiterate brute. Broughton, by contrast, although entirely self-educated, had a natural sensibility and temperament that allowed him to rise and move as something like an equal among his gentlemen patrons and students. His demeanor was universally acknowledged as pleasant and it was said that he took as much joy in flowers as he did in the defensive arts.
Broughton was responsible for introducing protective gloves, or “mufflers” into the sport. While official contests remained bare-knuckle, the introduction of gloves for sparring only helped to make the sport more attractive to the gentry.
Broughton also introduced the first, official set of rules for prizefighting. Known as “Broughton’s Rules,” they would serve as the basis for The London Prize Rules, which would serve the sport until the advent of The Marquis of Queensbury rules over a century later. These rules defined the spacial configuration in which a fight should take place and clearly prohibited anybody but the fighters, a referee and one second each from entering the area of combat. Perhaps most importantly of all, it became illegal for to strike a downed opponent.
Broughton established the rules as the result of a tragedy. In 1741, Broughton’s fighting career became a central element in the sibling rivalry between George II’s sons. While Broughton had long been backed by Prince William, older brother Frederick suddenly emerged on the scene, proclaiming that he had located a new champion, George Stevenson, a coachman.
A popular story told about Stevenson was that he had been promoted to head coachman by the rich merchant he worked for after he pummeled three bandits who attempted to rob the merchant’s wife one night on her way back from a social engagement. Stevenson later lost the job, when the merchant learned that while he was away, his wife was doing little else with her time but engaging her young hero to take her on long coach rides into the countryside.
Stevenson was the younger, quicker challenger, but lacked Broughton’s power and experience. According to the account recorded by Captain Godfrey, after a brutal, back-and-forth battle of 35 minutes, Broughton managed to finally secure victory locking up Stevenson in a clinch and forcing him to carry all of his weight, while he rested and recovered. This is essentially a version of the clinch-and-lean style the great Emanuel Steward tough to the giant heavyweights Lennox Lewis and Wladimir Klitschko. Of course, under contemporary boxing rules, the referee is obliged to quickly force a break. Broughton was able to grind down on the already fatigued Stevenson for several minutes. Then, after he had sufficiently caught his own breath, he broke the clinch and finished Stevenson with a brutal shot to the body.
I have seen countless sources that claim Stevenson died as the result of this fight. Bob Mee’s Bare Fists describes Stevenson lingering in a waking state for several days after the fight, during which time Broughton visited him and developed a true affection for him. It is a generally accepted historical fact that “Broughton’s Rules” were instituted as a direct response to Stevenson’s death, much as championship fights were reduced from 15 to 12 rounds after the tragic death of Duk Ku Kim at the hands of Ray Mancini in 1982.
However, Boxrec.com disputes that Stevenson actually died as a result of this fight. They correctly note that Captain Godfrey, Boxiana and Pugilista, the three most reliable sources for the history of fighting in the era, do not mention the death. In Boxiana, Egan writes that Stevenson’s “brave, contending heart, though with reluctance, was forced to yield,” so perhaps this choice of wording has contributed to the historical confusion. Boxrec further references two later newspaper articles which mention Stevenson, one as a combatant in another fight and one as a pall-bearer for a dead fighter, along with Broughton and a number of other noted fighters of the day.
Broughton’s eventual decline as a champion was to come like so many in the centuries since, at the hands of a lesser, but far hungrier, challenger. A butcher by trade, Jack Slack was a polar opposite of Broughton. Where Broughton was soft-spoken and congenial, Slack was confrontation and unpleasant. Where Broughton fought with a calculated intelligence, Slack fought in a fury.
By the time Broughton faced Slack, the butcher had recently lost to George Taylor, a former Broughton rival. Taylor was a great fighter in his own right, but had been seriously outclassed in his challenge to Broughton almost a decade earlier. Like Muhammad Ali preparing to face Leon Spinks for the first time, Broughton did not feel it necessary to specifically train for his upstart challenger.
In the early minutes of their fight, Broughton’s superior skill was evident and he toyed with Slack. Betting odds on the fight quickly rose to 10 to one. But during his years touring Europe with the royal family, Broughton had possibly forgotten what kind of hunger sustains an up-and-comer like Slack. Slack weathered his beating and eventually landing a leaping blow right across the bridge of Broughton’s nose, forcing both the champion’s eyes to swell shut. Broughton attempted to fight for awhile longer, but was forced to yield when it became clear that he could not see.
Betting on Broughton at 10 to one, the petulant Prince William lost many thousands of pounds. Reacting as one would expect a spoiled-brat prince to react, he insisted forever after that he had been double-crossed and that Broughton had thrown the fight. For a brief period of time, he even managed to get the sport he had spent so many years patronizing outlawed in London.
