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 number of MPs and clergymen, to watch the American John Carmel Heenan and England’s Tom Sayers (the Brighton Titch) beat one another blind and bloody in a bare-knuckle fight that lasted nearly two and a half hours. The fight ended in a draw when Aldershot police stormed the ring, forcing the fighters and their illustrious spectators to flee the scene. It was the brutality of this match that signalled an end to the bare-knuckle era and prompted the development of the Marquess of Queensberry’s rules. Dickens’s interest in pugilism was of long standing. In 1848 Dombey and Son , which had been published in serial form over the preceding two years, came out in book form. One of many of his novels that draws on the world of the prize fighter, it introduces the unforgettable Mr Toots, a would-be man about town, an...

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 I was standing outside the home of Bristol pugilistic champion Tom Cribb (1781-1848).  Cribb was born in Hanham but moved to London when he was a boy. He went on to work as a bellhanger, then a coal porter – which job earned him the nickname The Black Diamond. He later joined the Navy. His first fight was a seventy-six round bout against George Maddox in 1805. His only defeat was against George Nicholls in the same year. Cribb then trained under the famous sportsman and pedestrianist Captain Barclay, who prepared him for his 1807 fight against the reigning champion of England, Bristolian Jem Belcher. After his defeat, Belcher demanded a rematch, which took place in 1809 with the same result. (You can read more about Jem Belcher and other pugilists who are mentioned in Bloodie Bones: A Dan Foster...