‘Pugilism in Petticoats: Women and Prizefighting in Victorian Britain’ by Grace Di Méo originally appeared in Volume 27, Issue 4 of the Journal of Victorian Culture, October 2022.
This article attempts to add to the growing body of research into the role played by women in the early development of boxing, during the late-Georgian period and into the mid- and late-Victorian period.
If you ask most boxing fans to name an early woman boxer, they will most likely mention Jane Couch (boxed 1994-2007), or possibly Christy Martin (1989-2012). If they have a slightly deeper knowledge then it might be the likes of Marian ‘Lady Tyger’ Trimiar (1975-1985), or Cathy ‘Cat’ Davis (1976-1981). Those with an interest in the history of boxing may even offer the name of Barbara ‘The Mighty Atom of the Ring’ Buttrick, who boxed between 1954-1959, and would later go on to play a fundamental role in the development of women’s boxing in the later part of the 20th Century.
I don’t mention these names to show off my own knowledge – I only know of these women because of the research of others – but to highlight that even with pretty defined and targeted expertise, the common assumption is, almost overwhelmingly, that women’s involvement with the sport begins with the modern (post-1900) gloved era.
Di Méo’s work here is an excellent entry point to begin refuting these assumptions, as it lays out a few clear examples to the contrary and indicates where to go for further reading. This article is a prime example of why I decided to include academic texts in this blog; the breadth of research is illuminating, while the footnotes add brilliant suggestions to my reading list on boxing and its social impact. I know this is standard for academic writing, but I left secondary school under a bit of a cloud and became a carpenter, and only later in life began reading these sorts of texts; the pleasure I get from being signposted to a further piece of writing still hasn’t left me.
Whilst this text is based on research focusing on the period 1850-1900, it begins by offering examples of women who were regularly involved in prizefights during the 1700s. It’s worth noting that the prizefights during this time would have been very different; Jack Broughton didn’t publish his rules until 1743, with fights being gloveless, and closer to all-in wrestling or general ‘brawling’.
Di Méo uses Elizabeth Wilkinson-Stokes as an example of a fighting woman, whose earliest recorded contest was apparently in 1722. She won three guineas in the process, as a result of having had ‘some words’ with another woman, and challenging her to meet her and settle the dispute. It was also common during this period that women would fight alongside men, with Elizabeth joining her husband James. Di Méo quotes Sligo Champion (4 December, 1948) here:
the renowned prize-fighters Daniel Mendoza and John Jackson fought alongside a ‘dexterous’ woman named Mary Ann Fielding and ‘the Jewess from Wentworth Road’ for a prize of 11 guineas.
This practice was frowned upon by 1850, with women typically fighting against other women. The custom of women fighting at all was by now considered uncivilised, this feeling running parallel with a general condemnation of public acts of violence. The idea that a woman may now fight a man was considered completely unprincipled.
Di Méo describes how the British press commonly attempted to ‘defeminize’ women fighters in their reporting of contests, likening them to men and associating masculine traits with their behaviour. Quoting Alexander Andrews in The Eighteenth Century (London: Chapman and Hall, 1854), describing an eighteenth-century female fight:
‘one of the most revolting and abhorrent spectacles’ in which two women had ‘battered and bruised each other, without provocation, to the heart’s delight of a ‘respectable’ circle of beholders!’
The general narrative being driven by the press of the time was to maintain the idea that women were to only ever be passive, gentle and compliant, whilst also being too emotional and impulsive to ever master the art of pugilism. This was a major shift from the attitudes of the 1700s when women were, seemingly, praised regularly for their skills as fighters. Again quoting Sligo Champion:
A 1795 fight between Mary Ann Fielding and ‘the Jewess from Wentworth Road’ was described thus: ‘Each displayed great dexterity, intrepidity, and astonishingly well-conducted manoeuvres in the art of boxing… Fielding fought with great coolness and singularity of temper [and] was declared the winner.’
Many of the reports of prizefights from this period exist in the form of court records, with the authorities being encouraged to exert pressure on those attempting to organise or attend these contests, mainly by designating them ‘breaches of the peace’. However, many women went unprosecuted due to magistrates viewing the cases as unimportant. While some women were still prosecuted, accused of degrading public morality by contradicting the behaviour expected of women of the time, it is probably more telling that there was a dismissive view toward the ability of women to express aggression and/or be violent.
It does raise the question that if women’s violent tendencies were simply dismissed out-of-hand, does this mean that prizefights involving women passed without police interference? Without police interference, there would be no arrests made and no chance of the women being prosecuted, with their fights recorded for posterity.
Is our societal assumption that women weren’t involved in early/mid-Victorian prizefighting simply based in a lack of recorded evidence, rooted in the prevailing contemptuous attitude in the media and the law courts of the period? I look forward to following Di Méo’s footnotes to explore this further.
Writers on Boxing 
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