Sherlock Holmes: 19th Century Pugilist
“Only a ruffian deals a blow with the back of the hand. A gentleman uses the straight left!”
- Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes
Boxing in the English sporting tradition, which predates many Eastern forms of combat (its origins are several centuries older than aikido, judo, tae kwon do and karate, to name a few), was of great interest to Conan Doyle. He praised the old prize-ring bare-knuckle style of boxing as well as the newer style and thought “better that our sports should be a little too rough than that we should run a risk of effeminacy.”
Boxing during the era of the London Prize Ring (the ruleset utilised before that of modern boxing, which is based on rules known as the Marquess of Queensbury rules) was practised mostly by the lower classes, and pugilists would often be hoping to fight their way out of poverty, just as they would later during the Great Depression. The sport attracted many rich and powerful fans, known as “The Fancy”, who might become the patron of a particular boxer, thus giving him the chance to earn a decent living.
A depiction of one of bare-knuckle champion Daniel Mendoza’s fights, from the 1934 movie The Scarlet Pimpernel.
As social attitudes changed towards the end of the 1800s, however, boxing was modified to make it less bloody and barbaric. Gloves became mandatory, throwing was banned, and the number and duration of rounds was limited. This new, more palatable, form of the sport caused a new amateur or “scientific” boxing scene to spring up that became very much in vogue among the gentlemanly classes, and it was this kind of boxing, as typified by the Oxford and Cambridge Varsity fisticuffs, that would have been studied by Conan Doyle and Holmes.
Holmes was an accomplished amateur boxer, and it is suggested by a former opponent of his that, had he chosen, he could have taken it to a professional level and really “been a contendah”:
“I don’t think you can have forgotten me. Don’t you remember the amateur who fought three rounds with you at Alison’s rooms on the night of your benefit four years back?”
“Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes!” roared the prize-fighter. “God’s truth! how could I have mistook you? If instead o’ standin’ there so quiet you had just stepped up and given me that cross-hit of yours under the jaw, I’d ha’ known you without a question. Ah, you’re one that has wasted your gifts, you have! You might have aimed high, if you had joined the fancy.”
-from “The Sign of the Four”
The other significant reference to boxing can be found in “The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist”. Holmes related the bar-room brawl thus:
“He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous. He ended a string of abuse by a vicious backhander, which I failed to entirely avoid. The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart.”
Holmes is characteristically terse in describing this encounter, so let’s watch Jeremy Brett go through the pugilistic motions:
The oft-lampooned circular movement of the arms, known as milling, was in fact a real tactic which was used to keep your opponent guessing as to where the next blow would come from. The guard is lower and extended further from the head than in modern boxing. This is a holdover from the old bareknuckle days when it was much more important to keep your opponent at a distance, both because the sport used to incorporate standup grappling and throws and also because un-gloved punches are more apt to seriously damage the face.
