In the red corner, Miles Templeton and in the blue corner, Sam Perrin take on London’s extraordinary history of boxing and boxers.
Doors: 7pm
Tickets: £10 [£8 concessions]
ROUND ONE:
Boxing may have originated in ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, and although fist fighting for the sake of entertainment took place throughout history, there was no real coherence until the sport saw a major revival in London in the 17th century.
Miles Templeton, founder of the largest archive on the sport, will count us down through the history of boxing in London - from bare-knuckled pugilism through the scheduled fights at the Royal Theatre, the introduction of the Queensbury Rules, the adoption of gloves, three-minute rounds and the ten-second count to the sport of today.
And Miles will tell of the extraordinary lost world of London boxing venues and of the fascinating and oft-forgotten fighters who fought within the city.
ROUND TWO:
As boxing developed, there were one or two female 'celebrity' boxers, but female fighters were largely viewed as a novelty and were often relegated to side acts at freak-shows and circuses during the fin de siècle.
Social historian Sam Perrin shows that the general viewpoint at that time was that female boxers shouldn't be allowed - for the same reason that women shouldn't vote - both those things being 'a man's prerogative’.
Conversely, upper class women had secretly started taking private boxing lessons from boxing champions of the time, while working class women would take lessons and have fights in pubs.
Sam will discuss the extent that the National Sporting Club overhauled boxing's somewhat grubby reputation. Was the NSC solely responsible by enforcing the Queensberry Rules, or was it the increasing numbers of female spectators flocking to watch fights that elevated the sport's stature?
Miles Templeton has been a British boxing Historian since 1973 and has built up the largest archive on the sport, covering both amateur and professional boxing, from 1871 to the present day. He writes a weekly column on the history of the sport for Boxing News. I is the Northern area representative for the British Boxing Board of Control. He has appeared on many TV programmes including Antiques Roadshow, Michael Portillo’s Great Railway Journeys, The One Show.
Sam Perrin is a social historian of the Victorian long century, focusing primarily on churchyards, garden cemeteries and burial reform. She holds an MA in Victorian Studies from Birkbeck, University of London, and is currently researching the mass burial sites of epidemic victims. She has delivered past talks to the LNCSS, National Archives, Museums Show-Off, Camden History Society, Wellcome Trust, Pride in STEM, Dickens Fellowship and Museum of London.