Talk:Jack Randall (boxer)

Location of Coombe Wood

I've removed a sentence saying that Coombe Wood is a piece of woodland near Shirley, Croydon. Coombe Wood (sometimes given as Combe Wood) is consistently described in the early references (Boxiana and Pugilistica) as being near Kingston, on the highest part of Wimbledon Common. See for example, Boxiana vol 2 p263 where it says that Randall-Walton was fought in the same ring as Scroggins-Eales, the exact location of which is given on p229 as 'near the George at Kingston Hill'. See also Pugilistica vol 1 p168 & p293. 2A02:C7C:5AED:8E00:94A0:885D:BC00:2C4B (talk) 11:57, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Jack Randall's, 45 Chancery Lane

I've removed a sentence saying 'An historic landmark, a replica of his pub, known as Jack Randall's still stands at 45 Chancery Lane today'. Walking down Chancery Lane recently didn't seem to bear out the existence of such a pub. A search on Google reveals no evidence that such a pub exists (or existed in the recent past), and the three references next to the sentence (16, 17, 18) are two contemporary reports of Randall's death (from 1828) and two page references to Pugilistica vol 1, a source published over 100 years ago. However, it is correct that 45 Chancery Lane was the address of Randall's pub in the 1820s (the 'Hole in the Wall') as is shown on the relevant page on pubshistory.com where Randall is shown as the licensee in 1825. 2A02:C7C:5AED:8E00:ACA7:4A43:B6A5:A8AF (talk) 03:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Tidying up

A few minor adjustments... (1) I added a brief note to the text to clarify the location of Coombe Wood, the site of several of Randall's fights. (2) For the sake of consistency I've altered references to 'Combe Wood' to read 'Coombe Wood', so that all references to this location have consistent spelling. (3) I've altered a reference to Daniel Mendoza being the 'English Heavyweight Champion' to say instead that he was the 'English Champion'. Mendoza was actually a middleweight, but was skilful enough to beat much heavier opponents. There was only one title at this time and that was simply 'English Champion'. There were no weight based categories, so, for example, Jack Randall - despite being recognised as by far the best lightweight of his era - was never considered to be the 'English Lightweight Champion'. 2A02:C7C:5AED:8E00:35CA:51B1:D650:DE5C (talk) 06:51, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Randall vs Burke

Randall fought Burke in 1818. He had previously fought Burke in 1817 in an exhibition fight in a pub (contested until the first fall), although that encounter would hardly be considered a prizefight.

The article here used to contain the following piece of confused text which I have removed.

"Puglistica, generally considered a more reliable source than Bell's, wrote that the two boxed a few days after the Belasco fight in September 1817, at Tom Oliver's, and that it was basically an amateur affair using gloves. It is conceivable that the two boxers met twice, once in an amateur bout, and once in the professional bout at Wimbledon Common, but they certainly did meet and fight at least once. Bell's Life could have made an error in the date, but the fight occurred, although according to most sources it was not a fight of major importance in Randall's boxing record, nor one of the more well attended".

Pugilistica and Boxiana (a compilation of Pierce Egan's Bell's Life articles) both detail both of these two incidents. That being the case I don't really see why there is room for confusion on whether Randall and Burke fought once or twice, or on whether or not Bell's Life had the right date. The pub fight was in 1817, the prizefight was in 1818, all sources are agreed on those details. However, given that the 1817 room fight isn't really a noteworthy part of Randall's career it is all a bit academic. In any event, I have removed the paragraph quoted above. Axad12 (talk) 14:16, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Early record

Some care needs to be taken here regarding Randall's early record and his career W-D-L record (currently given in this article as W16, D1, L0). In the first instance, it is not the usual practice to include junior or amateur fights in a boxer's career record. Secondly, the "draw" vs Jack Henshaw (an otherwise unknown person) does not seem to have been a prizefight. Boxiana states that Randall was "unavoidably engaged in Marylebone Lane" (i.e. in central London) by Henshaw, who was 3 stone heavier, and the fight was broken up by their friends. There is no discussion in Boxiana of stakes, seconds, etc, or any other detail to suggest that this was a prizefight - in fact everything suggests that it was a streetfight.

The first fight of any note in Randall's career is generally accepted to have been his fight vs Jack the Butcher, which is probably where the discussion of his prizefights ought to begin. That would also give him a 100% record, which is clearly how his boxing career is depicted in the contemporary source Boxiana. Axad12 (talk) 14:43, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Just an afterthought on the Henshaw fight...

It's worth noting that this fight is omitted from the list of Randall's prizefights on page 227 of Fistiana (1840) - presumably because the author was aware that it was not a prizefight but just a casual streetfight. Fistiana is a very convenient source giving career records for all prizefighters (i.e. just the dates of fights, the opponents, results, stakes, etc). Fistiana is as close are we're going to get to a contemporary canonical account of early fighters' careers. It's accessible on archive.org and is a very useful research tool.

Randall-Burke 1817 and Randall-McCarthy are both included, with notes that they were not actual prizefights (one is detailed as a glove fight, i.e. an exhibition, and the other as a 'turn-up', i.e. impromptu encounter fought under prizefighting rules), but Randall-Henshaw is omitted altogether - clearly indicating that it wasn't even close to having been a prizefight. Axad12 (talk) 21:23, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Various changes

Generally speaking this is an excellent and well-sourced article and the previous authors are to be congratulated. I've made a number of corrections, adjustments, etc to the text of the article, as described below, added first-hand source material and re-did some of the references. However, I just wanted to make it clear that I really liked the article before I made the changes, and only really wanted to improve things here and there.

Added as external sources (i.e. links) the three main sources for information on Jack Randall, i.e. (a) the contemporary material written by Pierce Egan and collected in his Boxiana, (b) the canonical record of all prizefights prior to 1841, Fistiana, and (c) the chapter on Randall in Henry Downes Miles’ Pugilistica, 1906.

Removed second-hand and third-hard sources (such as Boxing Register) as references and replaced them with the exact page references from the original sources mentioned above.

Altered reference to the location of Randall’s birthplace St Giles, which is definitely right in the middle of central London and not ‘north of London’ as the article used to say.

Removed reference to all of Randall’s victories having come by knockout. Bareknuckle prizefights only ever ended when one fighter was rendered unable to continue fighting due to the punishment he had taken, so modern terminology like ‘knockout’ isn't really applicable.

Removed reference to ‘considered by some to be rough and illiterate’. This would have been typical of pretty much all bare-knuckle fighters.

Removed ‘often credited’ as the inventor of the one-two, replaced with simply ‘credited’, (as I'm not convinced that 'often' is really applicable). A citation or two would be useful here.

Altered reference to West Molesey now being 17 miles southwest of London. It is actually on the fringes of Greater London.

In the account of the victory over West-country Dick, altered reference which used to say that Randall dominated from the 24th-28th round. It was correct, but the contemporary account makes it clear that Randall actually dominated throughout, so I altered the text to reflect that fact. (Dick was floored in every round and the crowd could apparently see that Randall would win by the end of the 8th).

Added some direct quotes from the original source material to some of the fight descriptions for the sake of colour.

Was going to change the section title ‘Match with Isaac Borrock’ to ‘Early Career’, as several different fights are actually covered in this section (not just the one vs Borrock). However, as the previous section is actually called ‘Early Life and career’ I pulled the two sections together.

Regarding Belasco, removed ‘close friend of Daniel Mendoza and replaced with ‘associate of Daniel Mendoza’.

I significantly reduced the length of the sections describing Randall’s fights with Belasco and Turner. In an encyclopaedia there isn’t really any need to give long and very detailed blow-by-blow accounts, just a general gist will do (the account of Randall-Martin #1 was perfect). I’ve tried to add more contemporary colour to the accounts by adding direct quotes from the original reports. (The original fight reports are now linked to the article under ‘External Sources’ for those wishing to read the entire reports.)

Directly after the first fight vs Martin the text says ‘Martin boldly insisted he would win given a second chance’ and the narrative then continues with the second fight. This rather obscures the fact that 2 years had elapsed before the second fight occurred, during which time Randall had effectively retired, and Martin had had some very good results including beating Turner. I added some detail to flesh things out for 1819-1821. Also, it is incorrect that Martin ‘boldly insisted [on] a second chance’ as it was Randall who challenged Martin to the rematch.

Also, there seemed to be some confusion in the original text saying that Crawley Down is ‘in East Grinstead’. The two places are actually some miles apart, the confusion presumably derives from the fact that the fight was supposed to be held in a field near East Grinstead, but was moved to Crawley Down at short notice.

Text used to state that Randall tried unsuccessfully to set up further fights with Martin, I added some text here as the situation was a little more complex.

Removed a description of the game ‘Fives’ (not relevant to the article here) and made the word Fives a text link to the relevant Wikipedia page instead. Removed reference to Randall having exhibited at the Five's court 'often with his friend Jem Belcher' and replaced with simply that he exhibited there 'occasionally'.

The list of fights at the end of the article omits a few fights mentioned in Randall's career record as given in Fistiana 1841. If I get the time I will add them in. Axad12 (talk) 08:24, 12 March 2023 (UTC)