“At foot-ball or at cricket,
At prison-base or touching-chase
Right featly then could prick it,”
Tom Faulkner was long remembered. Yet does his name again occur in 1789. The bruisers of Birmingham challenged those of the best note in London. Isaac Perrins challenged Tom Johnson, the champion (See life of Johnson, post.) Jacombs challenged Bryan (Big Ben); Pickard, George Ingleston, the brewer; and these fights came off, as we shall see, in favour of the metropolis. Fired with the idea, Tom Faulkner (at 53 years of age!) challenged Watson, and Thornhill threw down the gauntlet to Hooper, the tinman. These two last matches went off; a proof, we think, that the Birmingham backers were not without judgment, though they did lose the first three events.
Tom Faulkner was certainly an evergreen of amazing sap and pith. Early in 1791 he was challenged by Thornhill (called in the report “the Warwickshire bruiser”), who had been disappointed in his match with Hooper, the tinman. The veteran Tom accepted the cartel, and they met at Studley, in Warwickshire, March 21, 1791. “Ryan seconded Faulkner, and Williams was his bottleholder. Jack Lea waited upon Thornhill, with Biggs his bottleholder.” We copy the report. “At two o’clock the combatants set-to, and throughout the battle Tom’s superiority in judgment and distance was manifestly evident. Thornhill was much the stronger man, and only fell by one knock-down blow during the contest, except the last, which Tom struck him in the neck, too forcibly to be withstood, and Thornhill gave in. The conflict was extremely severe, and lasted fifty minutes. The door money amounted to upwards of £80, two-thirds of which became the property of the winner, and the remainder to the unsuccessful combatant.” Faulkner was one of those lucky men who closed a career of exceptional length with the garland of victory on his grey head. Tom was living in 1798.
BILL DARTS (CHAMPION)—1764–1771.
Among the boxers of his day, Bill Darts, the dyer, held a high reputation for steady courage and hard hitting, and by no means a contemptible amount of science. One of the most remarkable of his battles was with Tom Juchau,[[28]] at Guildford, Surrey, in May, 1766. It was a famous fight for forty minutes, when Juchau was beaten out of time. The stakes were 1,000 guineas.
Dogget, the West Country Bargeman, had secured so high a name among the “twoads” that an invite was given to Bill Darts to come down to Marlborough to be thrashed. With the first part of the invitation Bill complied; the second he not only declined, but, per contra, gave Mr. Dogget such a thrashing, that he carried off the honours of the day and the irate countryman’s 100 guineas staked upon the event.
Swansey, the butcher, found friends to back him for 50 guineas, and he and Darts met, Oct. 13, 1767, on Epping Forest. The butcher was soon knocked down and thoroughly cut up.
Bill Darts now invited all comers for the championship, which he had held for five years, when Lyons,[[29]] a waterman of Kingston-upon-Thames, disputed his title. They met, and Darts, for the first time, was defeated in forty-five minutes, on the 27th of June, 1769.