before continuing the history of tom cribb and finally disposing of the unlucky belcher, it is necessary to turn aside and examine the brief pugilistic career of john gulley, who, like jackson, fought but thrice and like him depended for fame more upon his respectability than upon the drive of his fist. to get the worst over at once i may record the notorious fact that gulley, after leaving the ring, made money and flattered his self-esteem by entering parliament, sitting for pontefract. nowadays champion boxers are a cut above that sort of thing.
despite the shortness of his fighting life and his monumental respectability, john gulley was a very fine pugilist. how he gained the necessary reputation before being matched with the game chicken it is impossible to say. we know that he found willing backers, so we may safely assume that he had shown more than usual skill with the “mufflers,” as boxing gloves were called in those days. the fight, which took place on july 20th, 1805, at hailsham, in sussex, lasted for an hour and ten minutes, and was finished in fifty-nine rounds. gulley was beaten, nearly every round ending by his downfall, but he boxed well and showed remarkable endurance and pluck.
on the retirement of pearce, chiefly owing to ill-health—indeed, the poor fellow died not long afterwards of consumption—gulley became virtual champion. but he can hardly be described by that title with full justice, for the reason that he declined the office and showed no desire to act as a champion in the true meaning of the word, for he did not stand to accept challenges. he honourably retired from the ring, kept the plough inn, carey street, and realised a large fortune as a 35 bookmaker. but his two victories over bob gregson are certainly worth mention. one of them is the subject of an illustration in this book.
though these battles were between two big men, the hugeness of gregson made them appear unevenly matched. gulley weighed about 13? stone, and stood just under 6 feet. gregson, a lancashire man by birth, weighed 15 stone and was 6 ft. 2 inches. they fought at six mile bottom, near newmarket, on october 14th, 1807. gulley had tom cribb in his corner and gregson bill richmond.
for the first six rounds there was little to choose between them. but gregson was somewhat daunted by a very severe knock down in the second round. gulley hit him full in the face with such force that the blood literally flew from him. in the seventh, however, the bigger man fought through his opponent’s guard and gave gulley such a blow under the eye as knocked the senses out of him for a few seconds, and his eye swelled up so that he was completely blinded in it. in the next round gregson, using his tremendous strength, lifted his man up and hurled him to the ground as though he had been a piece of timber. but he refrained from falling on him, which, by the rules then in force, he was entitled to do, and whereby with his great weight he might have done severe damage—and so earned the cheers of the onlookers. the ninth round immediately following, found gulley still quite cool and using all his skill. he knocked his man down, though not severely. then onward till the sixteenth round, however, gregson’s strength made itself felt, and he gave john gulley a very bad time. gulley seemed to be weakening, and round after round ended in his downfall. then he “got his second wind,” and in a fierce rally knocked gregson clean off his feet.
it must be remembered that for some time past gulley could see with but one eye, and though he was the better boxer, his opponent’s extra weight was a severe added handicap when it came to a fall. gulley would have much the better of the exchanges round after round, and yet many of these rounds ended by his being desperately thrown. 36
by the twenty-third round, however, it was seen that gregson’s strength was ebbing, whilst gulley somehow gave the impression of maintaining the same condition as he had shown after the first ten rounds. that is to say, he appeared to be weak, but again and again gathered himself up for some prodigious effort by sheer will-power. up to the twenty-fifth round it was, as the saying goes, anybody’s fight. both men were badly damaged: the strength of both was fast ebbing. you might say that if either had known exactly how bad the other felt he could have won then and there. in all personal combats it is each man’s business to hide his feelings from his opponent. he must be hurt without showing that he is hurt, and however much hurt he must persist in wanting to win. there comes a time in a hard fight, with gloves or without them, when one man or other wants less to win than to be done with the whole agonising, wearying business on any terms. and that man is beaten. so it was now with gregson. hurt and fatigued, he lost heart at last. his will had been stubborn, but not so stubborn as john gulley’s. they fought on till the thirty-sixth round, till both were almost at a standstill. then gulley made the last supreme effort and knocked bob gregson down, so that he could not rise to the call of time. gulley himself came staggering to the scratch.
this was regarded at the time as one of the severest battles ever seen in the prize-ring. it was a good sporting encounter throughout, with good will and even magnanimity on either side. gulley had greatly improved in the science of boxing since his encounter with the chicken, and he needed all that science in order to balance gregson’s extra height, weight, and reach.
for his part gregson and his backers believed that he could yet beat gulley, and he accordingly challenged him to fight for ￡200 a side. the day fixed was may 10th, 1808, and the scene of action on the borders of bedfordshire and buckinghamshire. the magistrates, however, made difficulties, as they occasionally did even in those days, and the dunstable volunteers were called out to “keep the peace” and to deal with “the proposed riotous assembly.” eventually the principals, seconds, backers, and 37 huge “riotously assembled” crowd moved off to sir john seabright’s park in the friendlier county of hertford. and there the fight took place in a huge ring, forty feet square.
men on horseback and on foot, in barouches, coaches, carriages, donkey-carts, men walking, men running, went across country for several miles out of the jurisdiction of the enemies of pugilism. much rain had fallen during the day, with the consequence that the fighters had some difficulty in keeping their feet. gregson, in anticipation of this, had spiked shoes, but captain barclay, as referee, justly regarded these as dangerous and unfair, and ruled that the men should fight without shoes, which accordingly they did.
the men circled about each other in the dog-like fashion in which the majority of fights opened, and gulley retreated towards his own corner. his seconds, bill gibbons and joe ward, fearing lest gregson with his great weight should fall upon their man whilst his back was against one of the stakes, put their hands over the top of it to prevent serious injury. but gulley knew what he was about; feinting with his left he brought his right over with a great swing of his shoulders and caught his man fairly upon the temple and knocked him down. so excited were the onlookers at the second great trial between these men that they were quite silent, and not one cheer was raised. only the light shuffling of stockinged feet was heard, hard breathing, and the spank of gulley’s prodigious blow. the second round ended in the same way, though gregson had first put in a resounding thump upon his opponent’s chest, which was, however, unlikely to have damaged him much. they were still very cautious, and for five minutes sparred for an opening, neither taking any grave risk. then, with all his might, gregson let fly with his left. gulley took the blow on his arm, but felt the effects of it for long afterwards. it is probable that such a blow set up an inflammation of the muscles which, aided perhaps by rheumatism, would render it useless for several months.
the next three rounds ended by gulley going down: in the sixth gregson fell upon him so that he gasped long for breath. 38 he had previously committed a foul by seizing gulley’s thighs. the seventh round was gulley’s, for with blow on blow he drove his opponent through the ropes. he knocked gregson down again and it was evident that he not only knew more boxing, but by agility and strength made up for the disparity in their weights. the tenth round found gregson’s head pulped with savage blows and his left eye nearly closed. egan tells us that gregson was now “fighting rather after the lancashire method, without any pretensions to science.”
gregson showed plenty of ordinary pluck, for though he was knocked down again and again and severely punished, he stood up like a man. but the extraordinary pluck or will-power exerted in adverse circumstances deserted him sooner in this encounter than it had in the previous one. he had been very badly hammered then; and the moral effect of that thrashing told upon him now.
in the twelfth round gulley landed a smashing hit from which gregson was in the act of falling when his antagonist hit him again. there were cries of “foul,” but the blow was a fair one. such an incident happens not infrequently. it happened in january, 1922, at the end of the fight between carpentier and cook.
after this gregson was all but blinded, and staggered about the ring half dazed, he could not reach gulley, who hit him thrice in quick succession as it pleased him, and knocked him down.
in the seventeenth round gregson lost his temper and his head. that is fatal. it is, of course, all nonsense to suppose that an angry man cannot put up a good fight. he can; a touch of cold rage lends power to a man: thinking clearly he hits to hurt. but wild, tempestuous rage is another matter altogether. the man becomes blind, inasmuch as what he sees conveys no message to his brain. for a moment or two it is, perhaps, impossible to hurt him, for his passion consumes his other senses. but sooner or later some stunning blow will cool its victim’s fiery temper: there will be a brief moment of realisation, and—it will 39 be too late. the wild, unthinking attack will have been checked, but the power to guard against reprisal will be numbed.
gregson charged at his antagonist like a great bull, head down, arms working like flails. gulley stood still, coolly taking his opportunity. left and right he sent his bony fists crashing into gregson’s face, brought, by his attitude, into easy reach. left and right, and then, giving way a little, left and right again. he hit him as he liked, driving his weight behind each blow, guarding himself from or merely avoiding the ponderous windmill attack of the infuriated giant. when gregson’s moment of realisation came, his temper having passed, he fled towards the side of the ring, actually turning his back upon gulley as he did so. but gulley was after him and never left him alone, bringing short-arm blows to bear upon face and body until, utterly exhausted, gregson fell.
from the eighteenth to the twenty-fourth and last round gulley had the fight, as it were, in one hand. he punished gregson terribly, but the giant’s pluck was even greater than his rage had been. he would not give in, but came, at each call of time, staggering to the scratch. at last gulley got the chance of an absolutely clear, free blow, into which he could put every ounce of his weight. it caught gregson behind the ear and knocked him out; that is to say, he had not recovered at the end of half a minute, and was unable to stand at the next call of time.
bob gregson was certainly a great pugilist, and besides, like gulley and jackson, a man of presence and social charm. indeed, he was offered and accepted a commission in the army, but pierce egan tells us that his means would not support the privilege for more than a very short while. it is egan, too, who tells us that bob gregson, “although not possessing the terseness and originality of dryden, or the musical cadence and correctness of pope, yet still ... entered into a peculiar subject with a characteristic energy and apposite spirit.” in other words, gregson wrote verse. that there may be no misunderstanding, 40 the following stanza, the first of three in honour of tom cribb, is quoted below:—
“you gentlemen of fortune attend unto my ditty,
a few lines i have penn’d upon this great fight,
in the centre of england the noble place is pitch’d on,
for the valour of this country, or america’s delight;
the sturdy black doth swear,
the moment he gets there,
the planks the stage is built on, he’ll make them blaze and smoke;
then cribb, with smiling face,
says, these boards i’ll ne’er disgrace,
they’re relations of mine, they’re old english oak.”
this refers to one of the battles, shortly to be described, between tom cribb and molineux, the black.
