Guy Woolnough guywoolnoughbtinternetcom wwwguywoolnoughcom GuyWoolnough The Cock Fight English anon c1850 Compton Verney Heenan Sayers match April 1860 Cockfighting supported by eminent Westmorland gentry ID: 187922
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Slide1
Blood Sports in Victorian Cumbria: policing cultural change
Guy Woolnough
guy.woolnough@btinternet.com
www.guywoolnough.com
@
GuyWoolnoughSlide2
The Cock
Fight, English (anon)
c.1850
Compton Verney
Heenan
/Sayers match, April 1860.
Cock-fighting supported by eminent Westmorland gentry, Lancaster Gazette 1885Many respectable citizens, including magistrates, support and attend cock fights. Humber, R.D., Game Cock & Countryman, 1966Peachey, B. F. , The Cockfighters: A Survey and Analysis of the Sport of Cockfighting in Britain,1991-1992 (1993)
Hugh Lowther, Lord Lonsdale, ‘the sporting earl’ keen supporter of boxing,,
Sutherland
Yellow
Earl,
1965.Slide3
Cumberland and Westmorland Wrestling
Large crowds
and gambling, but no bloodshed
Georg Steadman wrestles Richard Wright, 1872.Slide4
Mace defeats
Tom King
The
Illustrated Sporting
News. 1862.
Jem
Mace
heavyweight champion, boxing promoter, showman
Mace brings fights to Westmorland
Apr 1865, fight completed, fighters summonsed afterwards, bound over £20
Mar 1867, police stop the fight, fighters sentenced to one month and three months.Slide5
Respectable, manly.
Wrestling
Foot-racing
Disreputable, blackguards and blockheads
Prize-fighting
Dog fighting
Rev. Hugh Stowell Brown speaking to young working
men,
Carlisle 1858, reported in Carlisle JournalSlide6
Respectable, manly.
Wrestling
Foot-racing
Hunting
Disreputable, blackguards and blockheads
Prize-fighting
Dog fightingCock throwing
Animal cruelty was in a dubious area. Many cases were brought by the RSPCA.
Dubious
Cock-fighting
Cruelty to animals Slide7
South Cumberland and Furness Cock-fighting Club, had a successful main on Saturday last, in the neighbourhood of Whitbeck. It is to be regretted that your contemporary was not in a position to publish the names of the hardened law breakers, who took part in this disgraceful affair.
Westmorland Gazette, 10 May 1890 p8
Favourable to cock-fighting: Westmorland Gazette
Carlisle JournalHostile to cock-fighting: Kendal Mercury Whitehaven NewsSlide8
Petty Sessions, Kendal 1864:One defendant said to “PC Currie ‘If they [those at the main] were all of my mind you (the police) should not go home with whole bones (Laughter)’”
Defendants admitted owning the cocks , fitting them with spurs, fighting them.
The defence: the police had presented no evidence that cruelty had taken place only that the cocks had been fighting.
“the bench ‘did not consider the case sufficiently strong against the defendants to convict them upon the evidence. They were sorry they could do no more.’”
The Difficulties of Policing Cock-fights.Slide9
Summary
Cock-fighting
Prize-fighting
Orders from the chief constable
None
Must be stopped
Behaviour of defendants
in court
Insolent, disruptive
Compliant
Penalties
Fines,
10shillings to £5Bound over, 3 months.AcquittalsFrequentNoneStatus of the ‘sport’
Cumbrian, traditionalAlien, brought in by outsidersActions of ordinary policemen.Police made determined efforts to stop matches.Slide10
Wrestling was respectable in Cumbria, prize fighting was alien and unacceptable.
Cock-fighting was supported by all classes. Some magistrates were sympathetic, some gentlemen attended cock-fights.
Cock-fighting was entrenched in local culture.
But the respectable working class were strongly opposed.Successful prosecution of these sports depended on the determination, initiative
and discretionary action of ordinary policemen.Slide11
2001: 14 arrested at a cockfight, Lancaster
October 2012. Two arrested for
organising cockfights in Sussex
January 2014. Four arrested at a cockfight in Kent