CHAPTER IV.
BILL HOOPER (THE TINMAN)—1789–1797.
As a foil to the bright memoir of a high-minded, self-respecting, and honoured athlete, we cannot better “point a moral” than by devoting a brief chapter to the sudden rise and inglorious fall of the “lion-hearted” boxer, known in the latter part of his career as “Bully Hooper;” his story is a beacon of warning to the successful pugilist in the day of his patronage, prosperity, and success.
William Hooper was born at Bristol in 1766, and previously to his unfortunate connexion with the notorious Lord Barrymore, followed his trade as a tinman in Tottenham Court Road, where he had the character of a smart, industrious, well-behaved young man. His qualifications as a pugilist were undoubted. Fear formed no part of his composition. His confidence was innate; and neither the size nor strength of his antagonist deterred him any more than a thorough-bred bull-dog would calculate the bulk of his unwieldy bovine foe. Transplanted from making saucepans to the festivities of Wargrave, and made the personal companion of a roué nobleman, he lost his head, as many better nurtured men than poor Hooper have done. The transition from narrow means and humble station made him insolent, overbearing, and ostentatious, and finally the petted pugilist sunk into the ferocious “bully,” thence from dissipation and violent excess into a shattered human wreck, his melancholy end marked by poverty, desertion, and disease.[[65]]
In person Hooper was compact and symmetrical. His shoulders and arms were fine, his chest deep and broad; his height under five feet eight inches, giving him the weight of 11 stone, showing him to have been nowhere overloaded.
He is said to have fought “a number of good battles,” of which we have no evidence, save Pierce Egan’s assertion, to set against the per contra of a contemporary, that he had “fought but twice before he met Lord Barrymore’s man.” We suspect, however, an incidental trace of our hero to lurk in the following paragraph at the end of the account of the great battle between Tom Johnson and Ryan, at Cashiobury Park (see ante, page 59).
“Two other battles were likewise fought on the 11th of February, 1789, on the same stage. The first between Solly Sodicky, the Jew, and Wilson, in which the Jew beat. The second was between the Welchman and a Tinman, in which the former was cleverly defeated.” Be this as it may, on the 19th of August, 1789, Hooper was matched with a local celebrity, Bill Clarke, the plasterer, and the affair came off in Bloomsbury Fields, a plot now covered with streets and squares, adjacent to Tottenham Court Road, where Hooper exercised his vocation of a tinman. The battle was obstinately contested, Clarke being a powerful man, but the intuitive skill, activity, and courage of Hooper carried him through, and his fame as a boxer spread.
Cotterel, the shoemaker, challenged Hooper for 10 guineas a side, and they met on Barnet Common, September 5th, 1789. There was a numerous assemblage, for Hooper was looked upon as something surprising, and was seconded by Tom Johnson, the Champion, while Bill Warr picked up Cotterel. Thirty-five minutes’ desperate fighting on the part of Cotterel led to his utter defeat, and Hooper, little the worse for the conflict, was proclaimed the conqueror.
A carpenter at Binfield Heath, of the name of Wright, having acquired much fame in Berkshire for his fistic skill, was proposed by Lord Falkland as a competitor for the Tinman, and Lord Barrymore, who had witnessed Hooper’s prowess, at once accepted the cartel on Hooper’s behalf, naming his own seat of Wargrave as the place of battle. Whatever might have been Wright’s pretensions among the yokels, he made a poor figure before Hooper, who fought with such skill and rapidity at his opponent’s head, that in twenty minutes Wright[[66]] was all wrong, and so punished as to be compelled to give in. This battle took place December 3, 1789.
Bob Watson, of Bristol, whom we shall have occasion to mention elsewhere (see Watson, Appendix to Period II.), was next introduced as an antagonist for Hooper. This proved a most remarkable battle. The place was Langley Close, near Salt Hill, in the neighbourhood of Windsor, and the day February 17th, 1790. Bill Warr seconded, and Joe Ward was bottleholder to Watson; Hooper was waited on by Tom Johnson and Butcher. Major Churchill and Colonel Harvey Aston acted as umpires, but called in a referee, owing to several differences of opinion during the prolonged contest. In the third round the Tinman cleverly floored his opponent, being the first knock-down blow; and this success he repeated in the three following rounds: the odds were now high in favour of Hooper, and continued to increase as the battle went on. Watson, though he could not ward off Hooper’s attacks, proved thorough game, and rallied strongly at the close of each bout. Two hours and a half, and one hundred rounds were fought, not without several appeals as to Watson’s style of delivering a blow and falling, and other unfair practices. Finally, after Watson had been “seven times accused of striking unfairly,” Hooper was acknowledged the victor.
Lord Barrymore’s increasing folly now led to Hooper being matched with Brain (Big Ben). This mockery of boxing took place at Chapel Row Revel, near Newbury, Berks, August 30th, 1790; night coming on, after three hours and a half harlequinade by Hooper, it was declared “a drawn battle!”[[67]] (See ante, p. 67).
This exhibition much tarnished the fame of Hooper, who was now the boon companion of the depraved Lord Barrymore’s excesses, and for more than two years he did not appear within the ropes, save in the capacity of a second. As on one of these occasions we find him officiating for Bill Treadway in a combat which brings under our notice the earliest record of a black pugilist, we preserve the paragraph as we find it, under the date of—
“June 13th, 1791. A pitched match was contested in Marylebone Fields, between an excellent African pugilist and the well-known Treadway. Peter Bath seconded the Black, and Hooper, the Tinman, his antagonist. The battle lasted thirty-five minutes, when Treadway was carried senseless from the field. During the combat the African showed great agility, excellent bottom, and a thorough knowledge of the art, not to be exceeded by the most skilful among the boxers.” This black diamond’s name is not preserved.
In September, 1792 an announcement appeared in the Chelmsford Advertiser that two pugilistic contests would take place at Colchester on the 4th of that month. “The grand jury who were at that time sitting, addressed the mayor, recorder, and magistrates, expressing their wish that they might not be permitted within the corporate jurisdiction. The mayor accordingly, by the public wish, forbad the erection of any public stage or any prize fight within the limits of his jurisdiction.”
In consequence of this notice, “orders were given for the erection of a stage eighteen feet square at Bentley, about nine miles from Colchester.”
On Thursday, September 4, 1792, the men met, according to arrangement, and at four o’clock the first two combatants, Hooper, the Tinman, and Bunner of Colchester, mounted the stage. Tom Johnson seconded Hooper, with Sharp as bottle-holder. Bunner’s second was Williams, and his bottle-holder Johnson’s old opponent Ryan. The stakes were 50 guineas a side. Bunner, who was a young fellow of great strength and resolution, began so vigorously that he bored down Hooper, and in the second round closing upon him, brought him down heavily. The odds went up on Bunner, and the Essex men were triumphant. Hooper found it would not do to trifle with his opponent: he kept out, and displayed his superiority in the art in great style, punishing his man sharply. In the sixth round, however, Bunner fell by an overreach, and broke his right arm, thus giving Hooper an easy conquest.[[68]]
George Maddox,[[69]] whose battle with the young Tom Cribb, has preserved his name and memory, next challenged Hooper. They met for a stake of 50 guineas, at Sydenham Common, Kent, Monday, February 10, 1794. Tom Johnson once more seconded Hooper; Maddox was attended by Joe Ward and Bill Gibbons, the renowned of Westminster, as his bottle-holder. George had proved himself a good man, and great expectations were entertained of his ability to dispose of Hooper, who was much the lighter man. Betting was five to four on Maddox. The Duke of Hamilton and a number of the aristocratic patrons of pugilism were present. For the first three or four rounds Maddox appeared to have the lead, and his friends were confident. Hooper, however, met him with undaunted courage, hitting straight, and putting in his blows with cutting severity. After three quarters of an hour’s sharp fighting, Maddox fell off, while Hooper increased in activity, and at the end of fifty-five minutes, Maddox gave in with much reluctance, and the Tinman was hailed the victor.
So high had Hooper’s fame now risen that a match was made by his backer in March, 1794, for him to fight the renowned Dan Mendoza on a twenty-four foot stage, for 50 guineas within a month. Dan, however, was not to be had at such a bargain. The Israelite preferred forfeiting his friends’ £20 deposit to risking his reputation on such terms.
That determined boxer, Bill Wood[[70]] was anxious to try his abilities with our hero. His friends assisted him with £50, and on Monday, June 22nd, 1795, they met and fought upon a stage erected on Hounslow Heath, in the dangerous vicinity of the powder mills. At two o’clock the combatants set-to. The contemporary accounts describe it as “a truly desperate battle.” After the first few minutes, the odds rose five to one, ten to one, and twenty to one on Wood. After fighting twenty-five minutes, during which the punishment was heavy, Hooper levelled Wood with a stupefying blow under the left ear. From this time Wood, though he struggled gallantly, never entirely recovered, and the blow being repeated, at the end of forty-eight minutes[[71]] Hooper was victorious. Towards the close of the fight the odds had changed to twenty to one on the Tinman. “The Duke of Hamilton, Colonel Hamilton, and a distinguished party of amateurs were present,” says the chronicler of the day.
Hooper had now arrived at the summit of his success by the conquest of so game and experienced a pugilist as Wood. His time had come to tread the downward path that leads to the cold shade of poverty, disgrace, and neglect. Within one year of his conquest of Wood his excesses and riot began to tell on a constitution shaken by hard living, night-riot, and debauchery, and Tom Owen,[[72]] a powerful young fellow, then known as “the Fighting Oilman,” having been quarrelled with by Hooper, professed his desire for a fight with “the Bully,” as he was now generally called. Charley Coant, then a boxer of some note, forming a high opinion of Tom, introduced him to Mr. John Jackson, and that good judge, approving the new candidate for the honours of the P. R., obtained friends for “the Young Oilman,” and a match was made for 100 guineas, which came off at Harrow on the 14th of November, 1796. Owen proved himself a resolute and steady fighter, and in the words of the reporter, “constantly kept a straight guard of such prodigious strength that Hooper could never beat it down, and very seldom put in a hit. Hooper, in striking a blow, dislocated his shoulder, and being dreadfully bruised, gave in” after fifty rounds of hard fighting. (See Life of Tom Owen, post, p. 110). As we have already said, Hooper was but a shadow of his former self; luxury and debauchery had spoiled him.[[73]]
Few men are more obnoxious to the smiles and frowns of fickle fortune than the pugilist: victory brings him fame, riches, and patrons; his bruises are unheeded in the smiles of success; and, basking in the sunshine of prosperity, his life passes pleasantly, till defeat comes, and reverses the scene. Covered with aches and pains, distressed in mind and body, assailed by poverty, wretchedness, and misery, friends forsake him—his fame waxes dim—his character is suspected by the losers; no longer the “plaything of fashion,” he flies to inebriation for relief, and a premature death puts a period to his misfortunes. Thus it was with Hooper: sheltered under the wings of nobility, he became pampered, insolent, and mischievous. His courage was undoubted, and though his frame was but small, it contained the heart of a lion; big men struck no terror to his feelings, and he opposed them with all the hardihood of an equal competitor, determined to conquer. Lord Barrymore, as already noted, was fond of larking and practical jokes, and whenever he could not come through the piece in style, Hooper appeared as his bully—his name overawed, and many a time saved his patron a deserved thrashing. One evening his Lordship took Hooper to Vauxhall, “disguised in liquor,” yet farther disguised in band and cassock, as a clergyman. The visitors discovered “the bully and his patron,” and after some rough handling, they were summarily expelled from what Old Simpson, the M. C., grandiloquently termed “the Royal Property.” At length his lordship cast him off, which, as he had cast himself away before, is not surprising. Hooper soon afterwards became wretched, disease overtook him, repeated intoxication brought him to the brink of the grave. One evening he was found insensible on the step of a door in St. Giles’s, and conveyed to the watch-house; on enquiring who he was, he could but faintly articulate, “Hoop—Hoop—.” Being recognised as the miserable remnant of that once powerful pugilistic hero, he was humanely taken to the workhouse, where he immediately expired!—Sic transit gloria athletæ!
