Sep 11, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 13 segments
Spotify episode description London’s forgotten fighting history comes alive in this episode of the *London History Podcast*. Hazel Baker explores the brutal, theatrical and hugely popular world of…
Hazel BakerHost
I am Hazel Baker, London tour guide and director of londonguidedwalks.co.uk and your host for today.
Not the London of elegant Georgian squares, polished door knockers, polite calls and powdered wigs.
We are going to a city of muddy roads, half-built streets and open fields at the northern edge of town.
A place where a man could pay for a ticket, join a crowd of aristocrats, labourers, gamblers and curious visitors and watch people fight with fists, swords, cudgels and quarterstaffs.
For a broader introduction to the period, and of course that's the Georgian period then, go back and listen to episode 87, An Introduction to Georgian London, where we explore the city's rapid growth, its people, culture and contradictions.
It's a story about James Figg, a master of the sword and staff, who turned physical combat into a public attraction.
It's about Jack Broughton, also known as The Bruiser, who created a set of rules which are often treated as the beginning of modern boxing.
A Victorian local history used that phrase for this story and it's a memorable title and it's kind of stuck because when we follow the 18th century addresses, the picture becomes way more complicated.
This is the territory around what is now Oxford Street, at the meeting point of Marybone, Bloomsbury and St Pancras.
The city was expanding so quickly that its labels were shifting underneath people's feet.
Fields became streets, roads became commercial thoroughfares, parish boundaries mattered, but didn't always match how people described where they were.
Rather than force the story into a modern day map, we're going to let the Georgian city guide us.
We'll stand on Oxford Road, we'll step into Mary Bonefields, we will enter the amphitheatres and we will find out how a rough entertainment at London's Edge became a national obsession.
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I am Hazel Baker, London tour guide and director of londonguidedwalks.co.uk and your host for today.
Not the London of elegant Georgian squares, polished door knockers, polite calls and powdered wigs.
We are going to a city of muddy roads, half-built streets and open fields at the northern edge of town.
A place where a man could pay for a ticket, join a crowd of aristocrats, labourers, gamblers and curious visitors and watch people fight with fists, swords, cudgels and quarterstaffs.
For a broader introduction to the period, and of course that's the Georgian period then, go back and listen to episode 87, An Introduction to Georgian London, where we explore the city's rapid growth, its people, culture and contradictions.
It's a story about James Figg, a master of the sword and staff, who turned physical combat into a public attraction.
It's about Jack Broughton, also known as The Bruiser, who created a set of rules which are often treated as the beginning of modern boxing.
A Victorian local history used that phrase for this story and it's a memorable title and it's kind of stuck because when we follow the 18th century addresses, the picture becomes way more complicated.
This is the territory around what is now Oxford Street, at the meeting point of Marybone, Bloomsbury and St Pancras.
The city was expanding so quickly that its labels were shifting underneath people's feet.
Fields became streets, roads became commercial thoroughfares, parish boundaries mattered, but didn't always match how people described where they were.
Rather than force the story into a modern day map, we're going to let the Georgian city guide us.
We'll stand on Oxford Road, we'll step into Mary Bonefields, we will enter the amphitheatres and we will find out how a rough entertainment at London's Edge became a national obsession.
