Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 1 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-40, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863Miles, Henry Downes
History
Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 1 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-40, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863
Miles, Henry Downes
Boxing
We shall pass the earlier and unimportant battles of George the Brewer
to come to his most important contest, that with John Jackson, which
came off in presence of a distinguished company, in the yard of the Swan
Inn, at Ingatestone, in Essex, on the 12th of May, 1789. Brain (Big Ben)
seconded Jackson, Tom Tring (the Carlton House porter) attended upon
Ingleston.
On setting-to the betting was even, but the superior skill of Jackson
was evident in the first round, when after some skilful stops and
parries, Jackson at the close of the round brought down the brewer. In
the second and third rounds the skill and activity of Jackson brought
the odds to seven to four in his favour. In this round, owing to a heavy
rain which had fallen in the forenoon, the boards of the stage were
extremely slippery, and in breaking ground Jackson slipped, and fell
with such violence that his ankle was dislocated and the small-bone of
his leg broken. There was no alternative but surrender; although the
report of the day states that Jackson “offered to be fastened down to a
chair (after the fashion of sailors on a chest in their boxing matches),
provided the Brewer would do the like, and thus fight it out.” There was
pluck at any rate in the proposition; but George, who saw the stakes
within grasp, was not so green as to let go “the bird in hand.”
On the 23rd of October, 1789, Ingleston met and defeated Pickard, called
“the Birmingham Champion.” The battle took place on a twenty-four foot
stage, at Banbury, in Oxfordshire. It is described in the report as a
desperate stand-up fight, in which, after thirty-four minutes of
“fierce” rallying, Pickard cried “enough!” and Ingleston was hailed the
victor. This was fought the day after the great battle of Johnson and
Perrins. See _ante_, Life of TOM JOHNSON.
Pickard was not, however, satisfied of his inferiority to George, and
again found friends to back him for 50 guineas against his old opponent.
They met at Shipston-upon-Stour, Staffordshire, September 25, 1791, when
the former decision was re-affirmed, and Pickard cleverly defeated.
Ingleston’s last battle was with Bill Wood, the coachman, at Hornchurch,
for 100 guineas, February 13, 1793, which will be found under the
pugilistic doings of WOOD (p. 122). George Ingleston, on his retirement,
resumed his calling of a brewer, and was for years known as a civil and
industrious man in the neighbourhood of Enfield, where one of his old
patrons, Captain Brailsford, held a brewery of some extent.
BOB WATSON, OF BRISTOL—1788‒1791.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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