Chapter XL: Appendix: To Period IV

CAPTAIN ROBERT BARCLAY, ALLARDYCE OF URY.[164]

A History of Boxing without mention of Captain Barclay would be incomplete. As a thoroughbred sportsman, who practised what he studied, and achieved what he attempted, his name will be long preserved. Whether following the hounds after fox or deer, labouring to improve the system of agriculture, displaying his extraordinary feats of pedestrianism, exercising his judgment in training men for foot races and pugilistic combats, or in his encouragement of Highland sports and pastimes, Captain Barclay was always foremost. His knowledge of the capabilities of the human frame was complete, and his researches and practical experiments to ascertain the physical powers of man would have reflected credit on our most enlightened and persevering physiologists. The sporting pursuits of Captain Barclay were scientific, and his plans so well matured that his judgment generally proved successful.

Robert Barclay, Allardyce of Ury, succeeded his father in the eighteenth year of his age. He was born in August, 1779; and, at eight years of age, was sent to England to receive his education. He remained four years at Richmond School, and three years at Brixton Causeway. His academical studies were completed at Cambridge.

The Captain’s favourite pursuits were, the art of agriculture as the serious business of his life, and manly sports as his amusement. The improvement of his estates occupied much of his attention, and, by pursuing the plan adopted by his immediate predecessor, the value of his property was greatly augmented. His love of athletic exercises was seconded by the strong conformation of his body and great muscular strength. His usual rate of travelling on foot was six miles an hour, and to walk from twenty to thirty miles before breakfast was a favourite amusement. His style of walking was to bend forward the body, and throw its weight on the knees; his step short, and his feet raised only a few inches from the ground. Any person trying this plan will find his pace quickened, and he will walk with more ease to himself, and be better able to endure the fatigue of a long journey than by walking perfectly erect, which throws too much weight of the body on the ankle joints. With sound sense Captain Barclay tells us he always wore thick shoes and lambs’-wool stockings, to preserve the feet from injury, and impart a lightness and activity when for a time a lighter shoe is adopted. The Captain possessed uncommon strength in his arms. In April, 1806, while in Suffolk with the 23rd regiment, he offered a bet of 1,000 guineas that he would lift from the ground the weight of half a ton. He tried the experiment, and lifted twenty-one half hundred weights. He afterwards, with a straight arm, threw a half hundred weight the distance of eight yards, and over his head the same weight a distance of five yards.

The following list contains the most prominent public and private pedestrian exploits performed by Captain Barclay.

The Captain, when seventeen years of age, entered into a match with a gentleman in London, in the month of August, 1796, to walk six miles within an hour, fair toe and heel, for 100 guineas, which he accomplished on the Croydon Road.

In 1798 he performed the distance of seventy miles in fourteen hours, beating Fergusson, the celebrated walking clerk, by several miles.

In December, 1799, he accomplished one hundred and fifty miles in two days, having walked from Fenchurch Street in London, to Birmingham, round by Cambridge.

The Captain walked sixty-four miles in twelve hours, including the time for refreshment, in November, 1800, as a sort of preparatory trial to a match of walking ninety miles in twenty-one hours and a half, for a bet of 500 guineas, with Mr. Fletcher, of Ballingshoe. In training, the Captain caught cold and gave up the bet. In 1801 he renewed the above match for 2,000 guineas. He accomplished sixty-seven miles in thirteen hours, but, having drank some brandy, he became instantly sick, and unable to proceed. He consequently gave up the bet, and the umpire retired; but, after two hours’ rest, he was so far recovered that he had time enough left to have performed his task.

CAPTAIN ROBERT BARCLAY (ALLARDYCE OF URY).

_From a Miniature_, 1798. _Ætatis_ 19.
]

Captain Barclay felt so confident that he could walk ninety miles in twenty-one hours and a half, that he again matched himself for 5,000 guineas. In his training to perform this feat he went one hundred and ten miles in nineteen hours, notwithstanding it rained nearly the whole of the time. This performance may be deemed the greatest on record, being at the rate of upwards of one hundred and thirty-five miles in twenty-four hours.

On the 10th of November, 1801, he started to perform the above match, between York and Hull. The space of ground was a measured mile, and on each side of the road a number of lamps were placed. The Captain was dressed in a flannel shirt, flannel trowsers, and nightcap, lambs’-wool stockings, and thick soled leather shoes. He proceeded till he had gone seventy miles, scarcely varying in regularly performing each round of two miles in twenty-five minutes and a half, taking refreshment at different periods. He commenced at twelve o’clock at night, and performed the whole distance by twenty-two minutes four seconds past eight o’clock on Tuesday evening, being one hour, seven minutes, and fifty-six seconds within the specified time. He could have continued for several hours longer if necessary.

In December the Captain did one hundred miles in nineteen hours, over the worst road in the kingdom. Exclusive of stoppages, the distance was performed in seventeen hours and a half, or at the rate of about five miles and three-quarters each hour on the average.

As an additional instance of the Captain’s strength, he performed a most laborious undertaking, merely for his amusement, in August, 1808. Visiting at Colonel Murray Farquharson’s house in Aberdeenshire, he went out at five in the morning to enjoy the sport of grouse shooting, when he travelled at least thirty miles. He returned to the Colonel’s house by five in the afternoon, and after dinner set off for Ury, a distance of sixty miles, which he walked in eleven hours, without stopping once to refresh. He attended to his ordinary business at home, and in the afternoon walked to Laurencekirk, sixteen miles, where he danced at a ball during the night, and returned to Ury by seven in the morning. He did not yet return to bed, but occupied the day in partridge shooting. He had thus travelled not less than one hundred and thirty miles, supposing him to have gone only eight miles in the course of the day’s shooting at home, and also danced at Laurencekirk, without sleeping, or having been in bed for two nights and nearly three days.

In October, 1808, Captain Barclay made a match with Mr. Webster, a gentleman of great celebrity in the sporting world, by which Captain Barclay engaged himself to go on foot a thousand miles in a thousand successive hours, at the rate of a mile in each and every hour, for a bet of 1,000 guineas, to be performed at Newmarket Heath, and to start on the following 1st of June. In the intermediate time the Captain was in training by Mr. Smith, of Owston, in Yorkshire. To enter into a detail of his matchless performance would be tiresome; suffice to say, he started at twelve o’clock at night on Thursday, the 1st of June, 1809, in good health and high spirits. His dress from the commencement varied with the weather. Sometimes he wore a flannel jacket, sometimes a loose great coat, with strong shoes, and two pairs of coarse stockings, the outer pair boot stockings without feet, to keep his legs dry. He walked in a sort of lounging gait, without any apparent extraordinary exertion, scarcely raising his feet two inches above the ground. During a great part of the time the weather was very rainy, but he felt no inconvenience from it. Indeed, wet weather was favourable to his exertions, as, during dry weather, he found it necessary to have a water-cart to go over the ground to keep it cool, and prevent it becoming too hard. Towards the conclusion of the performance, it was said, Captain Barclay suffered much from a spasmodic affection of his legs, so that he could not walk a mile in less than twenty minutes; he, however, ate and drank well, and bets were two to one and five to two on his completing his journey within the time prescribed. About eight days before he finished, the sinews of his right leg became much better, and he continued to pursue his task in high spirits; consequently bets were ten to one in his favour, in London, at Tattersall’s, and other sporting circles.

On Wednesday, July the 12th, Captain Barclay completed his arduous undertaking. He had till four p.m. to finish his task, but he performed the last mile by a quarter of an hour after three in perfect ease and great spirits, amidst an immense crowd of spectators. The influx of company had so much increased on Sunday, it was recommended that the ground should be roped in. To this, however, Captain Barclay objected, saying he did not like such parade. The crowd, however, became so great on Monday, and he had experienced so much interruption, that he was prevailed upon to allow this precaution to be taken. For the last two days he appeared in higher spirits, and performed his last mile with apparently more ease and in a shorter time than he had done for some days past.

With the change of weather he had thrown off his loose great coat, which he wore during the rainy period, and walked in a flannel jacket. He also put on shoes thicker than any which he had used in any previous part of his performance. When asked how he meant to act after he had finished his feat, he said he should that night take a good sound sleep, but that he must have himself awaked twice or thrice in the night to avoid the danger of a too sudden transition from almost constant exertion to a state of long repose. One hundred guineas to one, and indeed any odds whatever, were offered on Wednesday morning; but so strong was the confidence in his success that no bets could be obtained. The multitude who resorted to the scene of action in the course of the concluding days was unprecedented. Not a bed could be procured on Tuesday night at Newmarket, Cambridge, Bury, or any of the towns or villages in the vicinity, and every horse and vehicle were engaged. Among the nobility and gentry who witnessed the conclusion of this extraordinary performance were the Dukes of Argyle and St. Alban’s; Earls Grosvenor, Besborough, and Jersey; Lords Foley, and Somerville; Sir John Lade, Sir F. Standish, etc. The aggregate of the bets is supposed to have amounted to £100,000.

Captain Barclay, as noticed in our memoir of Cribb, gave his training experience to the world in a modest publication. His papers upon agriculture in various magazines published in England and Scotland, were remarkable for their sound sense, plainness, and practical knowledge. That the severity of his athletic feats did not prematurely wear out the animal machine may be inferred from the fact that he enjoyed a green and active old age at Ury, near Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, his patrimonial estate, until his 79th year, respected as strongly in private circles for his kind and gentlemanly demeanour as celebrated for his public exploits, sporting and athletic.

GEORGE STEPHENSON, M.P.—1801.

It would indeed be the ignorance which casts away pearls were we to pass unnoticed an illustration of manhood identified with the practice of pugilism, wherein the honoured name of the greatest engineering genius of an engineering age was the prime actor. George Stephenson, therefore, the practical originator of the locomotive, the creator of railways as we now see them, the constructor of the most complete, permanent, and stupendous works on mainland, coast, and sea, that an age of wonders has seen, finds a place in PUGILISTICA. The facts and text of the narrative of this episode in the early life of George Stephenson are from Smiles’s “Lives of George and Robert Stephenson,” p. 80, edit. 1864. We may observe that George Stephenson (born June 9, 1781) would be twenty years of age in 1801.

“Not long after Stephenson began to work as brakesman at Black Callerton (near Newcastle), he had a quarrel with a pitman named Ned Nelson, a roystering bully, who was the terror of the village. Nelson was a great fighter, and it was therefore considered dangerous to quarrel with him. Stephenson was so unfortunate as not to be able to please this pitman by the way in which he landed him when drawing him out of the pit; and Nelson swore at him grossly for the alleged clumsiness of his ‘brakeing.’ George defended himself, and appealed to the testimony of his fellow-workmen. But Nelson had not been accustomed to George’s style of self-assertion, and, after a torrent of abuse, he threatened to kick the brakesman, who defied him to do so. Nelson ended by challenging Stephenson to fight a pitched battle. The latter coolly accepted the challenge, and a day was fixed on which the fight was to come off.

“Great was the excitement in Black Callerton when it was known that Geordie Stephenson had accepted Nelson’s challenge. Everybody said Nelson would ‘kill him.’ The villagers, the young men, and especially the boys of the village, with whom George was a great favourite, all wished he might beat Nelson, but they scarcely dared to say so. They came about him while he was at work in the engine-house to inquire if it was really true that he was going to fight Nelson? ‘Ay, ay; never fear for me, I’ll fight him,’ replied George coolly. And fight him he did. For some days previous to the appointed day, Nelson went entirely off work for the purpose of training, whereas Stephenson attended to his daily work as usual, for he was always temperate and in good condition, and did not seem in the least disconcerted by the prospect of the battle. So, on the day appointed George went into the Dolly Field, where his already exulting opponent was ready to meet him. George stripped, and went in like a practised pugilist, though it was his first and his last pitched battle. After a few rounds, George’s wiry muscles, sound wind, cool self-possession, and practised strength enabled him so severely to punish his opponent as to secure an easy victory. This circumstance,” concludes Mr. Smiles, “is related in illustration of Stephenson’s pluck and courage; and it was thoroughly characteristic of the man. Yet he was the very reverse of quarrelsome. But he would not be put down by the bully of the colliery, and he fought him. There his pugilism ended. They shook hands, and continued good friends. In after life Stephenson’s mettle was hardly tried, but in a different way; and he did not fail to exhibit the same resolute courage in contending with the bullies of the railway world that he showed in his encounter with Ned Nelson, the ‘fighting pitman,’ of Callerton.”

JOHN SHAW, THE LIFE-GUARDSMAN.
ONE OF THE HEROES WHO FELL ON THE FIELD OF WATERLOO.

This stalwart soldier, whose martial exploits and honourable death are recorded in the pages of Sir Walter Scott, Sir W. Napier, and the military annals of his country, bade fair to become a bright star in the pugilistic sphere, had not his career been so speedily terminated in the field of glory.

John Shaw was a native of Woolaston, in Nottinghamshire, and brought up as a farmer until eighteen years of age, when, tired of leading a dull, inglorious life, he enlisted, on the 16th of October, 1807, as a private in the Life-guards. Europe, we need hardly tell the reader, was then involved in the flames of war by the martial spirit and aggressive designs of the French nation and its military Emperor, and young Shaw—

“Had heard of battles, and had long’d
To follow to the field some warlike lord.”

When Shaw was a mere stripling, during the time he was fighting with a man three stone heavier than himself, at Woolaston, and in danger of being defeated, Jem Belcher, who was at Nottingham, suddenly made his appearance in the ring. That experienced hero went up to Shaw, and advised him how to alter his tactics so as to secure success. Shaw, learning that it was the renowned Jem Belcher who thus stepped forward to direct his efforts, felt inspired with fresh courage, acted promptly on the advice given him, and, in the course of a round or two, so turned the battle in his favour that he ultimately gained the victory in great style, and earned the praise of Jem Belcher. From this incident he attached himself to scientific pugilism.

Shaw possessed, in an eminent degree, many requisites for a first-rate pugilist. He was in height six feet and half an inch, weighing, when stripped, close upon fifteen stone; and he derived great advantages from repeated exercise with the dumb-bells, as a part of his military discipline; his continual practice of the broadsword also gave increased strength and elasticity to his wrists and shoulders. Discipline, too, had taught him coolness, in addition to a most excellent natural temper. He was introduced to the Fives Court under the patronage of Colonel Barton. In his first exhibitions he was considered rather slow; but from the frequent use of the gloves, in competition with the most experienced and scientific boxers, he rapidly improved. His height, length, weight, and strength, united with a heart which knew no fear, rendered Shaw a truly formidable antagonist. His public displays were considered far above mediocrity, and he felt great pride in getting the best of the then terrific Molineaux. In a trial set-to at Mr. Jackson’s rooms with Captain Barclay—who never shrunk from punishment, or hesitated in milling his adversary, scorning anything like the delicacy of “light play,”—the latter received such a convincing blow, that a dentist was called in to replace matters in _statu quo_. The best critics were satisfied he was a thorough-bred one, and it was proved to be very difficult to hit him without being returned on. In retreating he made use of his left hand with much effect, and was thought to fight something after the deliberate manner of Cribb.

In the neighbourhood of Portman Square our hero milled three big fellows in the course of a few minutes with comparative ease, for insulting him on the “stay at home” character of his regiment, at that time a favourite taunt of the vulgar. They were compelled to acknowledge their misconduct, and glad to cry for quarter.

Shaw’s first appearance in the P. R. was on Saturday, July 12, 1812, at Coombe Warren, with Burrows, a sturdy West-countryman, who had fought a good battle of an hour’s length with the tremendous Molineaux, when the athletic powers of the latter hero were undebauched and in full vigour; but, in the hands of Shaw, the West-countryman had not the slightest chance. In the short space of seventeen minutes, in which thirteen rounds were fought, the superior science of Shaw had so nobbed Burrows that he could not see his way, and he was led out of the ring. Burrows never once drew blood from Shaw, who quitted the field without a scratch.

Nearly three years elapsed before Shaw made a second appearance, during which period, it seems, from the considerable practice he had with the gloves, he was materially improved in science. On April 18, 1815, at Hounslow Heath, for a purse of fifty guineas, he entered the lists with one of the bravest of the brave, namely, Ned Painter. Victory again crowned his efforts in twenty-eight minutes, and he retired from the contest little, if any, the worse for wear. See PAINTER, Vol. II.,