Rare Antique highly collectible 1924 handcrafted reproduction of the original porcelain figurine produced in 1824 to celebrate the centenary of the legendary bare knuckle boxing fight between the English champion Tom Spring (1795 - 1851) and the Irish champion Jack Langan (1798 - 1846) for the heavyweight championship of Great Britain (7th January 1824).
Height: 8/21cm
Length: 7”/18cm
Width: 3.75”/ 9.5cm
Weight: Just under 1kg (940g)
Beautiful hand painted and hand glazed figurine from the King George V era. The original 1824 figurines are now extremely rare and museum pieces and considerably more expensive. These identical centenary reproductions are also antique now and very much sought after and collectible in their own right.
Please browse all 12 sets of photographs attached for size, weight and condition as they are self explanatory. In superb condition without any chips or cracks and normal crazing commensurate with age.
Tom Spring was the boxing heavyweight champion of England between 1821 and 1824. At this period boxing was fought with bare hands rather than gloves. Superb historic memorabilia. Many of these original items are now in Worcester City’s museum collection in the UK.
Boxing, then as of now, was a hugely popular sport. Forty thousand people turned up to watch Spring fight the Irish champion Jack Langan, more than twice the population of Worcester, England at the time. The match went on for 77 rounds, lasting over two hours!
The Worcester crowd was unruly, with one spectator stand collapsing at the start and another in the second round. Thr collapse caused more injuries in the crowd than sustained by the fighters!
Spring won the fight and the prize of 300 gold sovereigns (about £35,000 today or £90,000 in today’s gold value). He retired shortly afterwards to run the Castle Inn in Holborn, London where he arranged the patronage and contracts of many of the major boxing events of the period while overseeing fair play in the ring.
Spring was born at Witchend in Fownhope, Herefordshire. His surname was "Winter", which he changed to Spring when he became a professional boxer. His first career was as a butcher, the trade in which he was employed when he had his first known fight in 1812, against John Hollands. He had been encouraged to box from a young age by his father, who had constructed a sand bag for him to train with. Later his father was jailed for debt, which destroyed Spring's relationship with him. In 1814 Spring met the legendary champion Tom Cribb. Cribb was impressed by Spring's prowess and persuaded him to go to London under his patronage. This was the beginning of Spring's boxing career.That year, Spring travelled to Mordiford and won his first fight in 11 rounds and collected £3 prize money.
The Irish boxer Jack Langan fought Spring twice, losing on both occasions
Spring is considered one of the most scientific of the early English boxers, an approach that set him apart from most of his contemporaries. Not possessing a strong punch he honed a fine defense, and a powerful left hook.
Spring's first professional fight in the Prize Ring was with a Yorkshireman named Stringer, the bout taking place on 9 September 1817 at Moulsey Hurst. After 29 rounds in 39 minutes, Spring won by knocking out his opponent.
Aged 23 Spring twice fought the very experienced Ned Painter, winning the first bout and losing the second. His defeat of Jack Carter in 1819 earned him some notoriety, and he toured the country giving exhibition matches with the reigning English champion Tom Cribb. On Cribb's public retirement at the Fives Court on 15th May 1822 he handed over the championship title to Spring.
To defend the title Spring offered to fight anyone in England. No one challenged him until 1823, when he fought Bill Neat. Neat referred to Spring as a "lady’s maid fighter" because of his weak punch. The fight lasted just 37 minutes, with Spring victorious after knocking Neat down in the first round and cutting him severely in the second. This victory ensured that Spring was recognized as the champion of England.
In January 1824 at Pitchcroft, Worcester Spring fought against the Irish fighter Jack Langan. The two boxers had very different styles. Spring was light on his feet and fast, while Langan was slower and heavier. Spring was again victorious against Langan after a rematch.
In 1824 Spring decided to retire from boxing, his hands, never strong and always easily damaged, were now weakened. Throughout his career Spring had often managed to avoid damage with his fast hits and what became known as his Harlequin Step; this was a technique he developed of putting himself just within reach of his opponent, then avoiding the instinctive punch while simultaneously delivering one himself.
On his retirement he purchased the Castle Inn at Holborn (previously owned by the pugilist Bob Gregson), which under his management became the unofficial headquarters of English boxing; fights were arranged and contacts signed under his supervision. On 25 September 1828 an organization known as the Fair Play Club was formed to try and clean up boxing's image, "to ensure fair play to the combatants" and "to preserve peace and order in the outer ring". This was in addition to the London Prize Ring rules, which had been devised by Jack Broughton almost a century earlier. Spring was elected as the club's first treasurer, and was also authorised to employ officials to enforce the new rules and prevent invasions of the ring by supporters.
Spring twice arranged fights for the Irish heavyweight champion Simon Byrne. First in 1831 against Jem Ward and again in 1833 against James Burke for the heavyweight title. This was the longest fight in boxing history until the famous bout between Andy Bowen and Jack Burke in 1893, which went 111 rounds. It was brutal and bloody, but vast sums were riding on the fight. In the 99th round Spring had to carry the barely conscious Byrne to the mark to fight. Byrne was quickly knocked unconscious and died three days later. The death finally led to a reform in the rules governing English boxing.
In retirement Spring became very wealthy. He is known to have married and had two children. He split from his wife, and, in spite of the wealth Spring later acquired, she died destitute in the Holborn workhouse but Spring remained well respected for his kindness and good manners outside of the boxing ring. His reputation was in itself an achievement for a fight promoter of this era.
Spring died on 20 August 1851. His funeral was well attended, with many neighbours from The Castle, Holborn, walking with his coffin to West Norwood Cemetery. He was buried under his real name of Thomas Winter.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story, "The Lord of Falconbridge", with Spring as the protagonist.
John (‘Jack’) Langan (1798–1846) was born in May 1798 in Clondalkin, Co. Dublin. His family moved to Ballybough, on the north side of Dublin city, when he was a child, and his parents (of whom no other details are known) ran a provisions business. The tough environment in which he grew up helped to mould him as a prizefighter. His first recorded bare-knuckle fight took place when he was just 13, when he comprehensively defeated a boy five years older. Langan spent a short spell at sea before returning to Ballybough, where he commenced an apprenticeship as a sawyer at the age of 16. At 17 he was accused of murder when he ‘killed’ a 26-year-old called Savage in an all-day fight. Savage, however, rose from his coma and lived to be 93.
Throughout his teens Langan steadily built up a reputation as a fighter, and his victory over Owen McGowran in May 1819 for a prize fund of 100 guineas (£105) a side on the Curragh of Kildare established him as the best fighter in Dublin. A challenge to the rest of Ireland went unanswered and resulted in his being regarded as champion of Ireland. Always something of an adventurer, in 1819 he nearly starved to death when he participated in an ill-fated expedition to the Caribbean and South America to fight with Simon Bolívar's army. One of Langan's brothers, who had served on Nelson's flagship HMS Victory, accompanied him and died in Tobago. After achieving the rank of quartermaster-sergeant, Langan returned to Dublin where he became a publican, running an establishment called ‘The sign of the Irish arms’ in King St. Over the door he reputedly had the motto ‘Quiet when stroked; fierce when provoked’.
After a couple of years Langan fled Ireland as a result of losing a paternity suit and ended up in Oldham, Lancashire, working as a sawyer. Having initially been a protégé of Dan Donnelly (qv), he became a friend of another famous fighter, Tom Reynolds, who organised some bouts for him in the north of England. On 30 April 1823 he defeated local fighter Matt Wheeping at Buxton, Manchester, in front of 5,000 spectators. After going back to Ireland to serve time in prison for absconding without paying his paternity award, he returned to England, where he challenged the acknowledged English champion and the greatest fighter of the day, Tom Spring, to a fight, the match eventually being made for a sum of 600 gold sovereigns (300 each). The bout, one of the most famous in bare-knuckle history, took place at Worcester on 7 January 1824 in front of an estimated 30,000 paying spectators. Billed as a fight between the champions of Ireland and England, it lasted for almost two and a half hours and seventy-seven rounds. Although Langan started well and floored Spring as late as the 65th round, it was a battered and exhausted Langan who was unable to come out for the 78th round. The next day Langan demanded a rematch, claiming that Spring's supporters pressed so close to the ring that the boxers were forced to fight in a space of about five feet (1.52 m) in diameter, giving Spring an unfair advantage. This was a rather spurious claim, as most observers felt that the small space suited the slower and less mobile man. Crowd chaos at the fight was such that a spectator was killed and scores injured when a temporary grandstand collapsed.
The rematch was first set for Warwick on 8 June 1824 but was eventually held near Chichester, Sussex, before an attendance of 12,000. Although the fight was an hour shorter than the original match, it was even more brutal. Langan's strategy was to stay in the fight in the hope that Spring, who was taller, heavier, and a more stylish and scientific fighter than Langan, but had weak hands and was not a strong puncher, would have to retire with injured hands. In the end, the fight degenerated into a bloody and distressing spectacle, between a clearly exhausted Langan and an English champion whose hands were too damaged to finish him off. Eventually the fight was stopped by the umpire in the 76th round and Spring was declared the winner. Despite the brutality of the fight itself, it had been fought in good spirit and both men remained lifelong friends. According to one report Spring's hands were swollen to the size of ‘large apple dumplings’ and Langan's bravery was much admired and commented on. Such was the punishment endured by both men that neither fought again.
Never a stylish or scientific boxer, at 5 ft 11 in. (1.8 m) and just over twelve stone (76 kg) at his fighting peak, Langan relied on his great strength, tremendous stamina, and determination to win. After the fight he fell out with Tom Reynolds about some of the financial arrangements, and after a brief trip back to Ireland set himself up as a publican in Liverpool, where, according to one report, he provided ‘two days’ free lodgings, with ample porridge, potatoes, and beer, a glass of poteen and a straw bed for any Irish harvesters on the condition that they left their sickles and shillelaghs outside’. Despite the fact that his good friend, the writer Pierce Egan, produced an extensive account of his life and fights up to and including 1824 in his Boxiana, little is known about Langan's personal life. Naturally gregarious and good-humoured, he was successful enough as a publican to retire eventually to Cheshire, where he died 17 March 1846.