Harry Jones was born on the 4th of April, 1804, in Meadow Street, Bristol, a city eminent in fistic annals for the boxers it has given birth to. At an early age Harry chose a sea life, and was apprenticed on board the “Staunton,” East-Indiaman, Captain Harris, with whom he made three voyages. The traditions of his birthplace, and the fame and profit which had been achieved by the Belchers, Pearce, and other champions, were among the Sailor Boy’s early memories, and he determined to try his fortune in the P.R. This was in his eighteenth year, and bidding adieu to the service of the Hon. E. I. C., he made his way to Moulsey Hurst, on the day when Oliver and Abbot settled their differences, November 6th, 1821. Jones had already shown his skill with the gloves at the Fives Court, and when a subscription purse had been made for a second fight, the Sailor Boy threw in his hat, and was opposed by Latham, also known as a sparrer in the schools. Belasco and Tom Jones picked up the Sailor Boy; Dolly Smith and Phil Sampson did the like for Latham. It was an interesting battle for twenty-six rounds, occupying thirty-three minutes, when Latham floored Jones by a hit in the short ribs. Jones tried three more rounds, but he was unable to recover his wind, and gave in.
Undeterred by this stumble on the threshold, the Sailor Boy went in for a purse against Ned Stockman, then called “Bill Eales’s Chicken.” The fight was at Rutledge Common, Edgeware Road, on 29th January, 1822. It was a remarkable battle on the part of Stockman, who, in thirty-eight rounds and forty minutes, compelled the Sailor Boy to haul down his colours.
Harry Jones could not consider that his defeat by Stockman was a real trial of his quality, and, on June 12th, 1822, after Jem Ward had defeated Acton at Moulsey, he entered the ring for a new trial. Peter Crawley and Ned Turner were counsel for Stockman, and Jones’s interests were looked after by Jack O’Donnel and Abbot. After a few minutes’ sparring Jones rushed in and endeavoured to fib his opponent, but in the struggle to obtain the throw Jones sprained his ankle so severely as to be unable to continue the fight.
After these unfortunate ring exhibitions Jones fought several by-battles with commoners. Watts (a butcher) and Riley (a Westminster boxer) were beaten by him, and Peter Brookery, the Fishmonger, beat him in three-quarters of an hour.
In consequence of some chaffing at Tom Cribb’s benefit at the Fives Court, on Tuesday, June 1st, 1824, a match was made between Jones and Brown (the Sprig of Myrtle). A patron of boxing having offered a purse for the winner, Jones proposed, and Brown snapped at the offer, to fight it out that day. Accordingly, with Jack Randall as time-keeper, Dick Acton and Gipsy Cooper as seconds for Harry, and Tom Oliver and Tisdale for the Sprig, the party started for Paddington Fields, where, in nineteen rounds, lasting thirty-three minutes, the Sailor Boy achieved his first ring victory. This raised the reputation of Jones considerably.
About this time an amusing anecdote of Jones appeared in the newspapers. One Jem Aldridge, known as “the fighting typo,” backed himself for £5 against Jones. The Sailor Boy at this time, as “most people fall in love some time or other,” was engaged to a Miss Evans, and not keeping an exact “note of time,” his diary was in such confusion that he had fixed June 28th, 1824, for both matches. Not seeing how he could honourably put off either his bride or his challenger, he met both; and soon after he had sworn eternal fidelity, and the etceteras connected with the ceremony of “taking this woman to be thy wedded wife,” Harry started off to fulfil the other engagement. It is said that so lightly did he value his opponent that he merely consigned the lady to the gent who had given her away, with the remark, “Take care of my wife, like a good fellow, till I come back,” and bolted off to the field of battle, in Copenhagen Fields, near Pentonville. Arriving on the ground somewhat flushed and out of breath, the Sailor Boy shook hands with the typo, and to work they went. In twelve minutes Mr. Aldridge declined any further favours at the hands of Harry, who, pocketing the fiver, returned to the wedding party, and spent the evening in fun and merriment until “the throwing of the stocking, O!”—thus bringing off the “double event.”
Dick Price, a well-known butcher at Oxford, weighing upwards of eleven stone, and five feet eight inches in height, had given so much offence among his brother kill-bulls by his boasting and quarrelsomeness that they determined to give him a turn. A Mr. Parker, of Oxford, brought down Jones in butcher’s garb, and Price insulting him in the market, “Mr. Parker’s plant,” as he was called, proposed a fight. To this Price, with an expression of pity and contempt for the “Lunnon boy,” consented. At six o’clock in the evening of Wednesday, July 28th, 1824, the ring was pitched in Picksey Meadow, near Oxford. The combatants met first in Port Meadow, but an authority of the University city showed his awful phiz, and the crowd was put to the rout. Jones, after “kidding” his man to come in, played his part so well that in the ninth round he had him down to his own weight, and ten to one was offered by the undergrads and others, but no takers. At the end of the fifteenth round poor Price was at no price, when lo! after turning to avoid, he slung himself round again, and with a chance backhander caught Jones such an almighty whack on the left ear that down he went, and was deaf to time! The affair lasted in all twenty-one minutes. Jones felt immensely mortified, and challenged Price to a second meeting, but the latter had discovered his customer, and refused any further dealings. “I insist upon your giving me another chance,” urged the Sailor Boy. “I will,” said Price, “before the beaks;” so he applied to the Bench for a summons for a threatened assault, and the Sailor Boy was held to bail to keep the peace towards the complainant for twelve calendar months. “It’s lucky,” said the Sailor Boy, “that the bond only extends to Dicky Price. I must bid farewell to Oxford and look elsewhere for a job.”
Tom Reidie, so well known as “the Colonel” for many years afterwards, among the frequenters of the Leicester Square and Coventry Street “hells,” as the gaming-houses were then entitled, was hastily matched with Jones. The men met in the fields at the back of the “Red House,” Battersea (now Battersea Park), on the 4th August, 1824. The affair was a tiresome exhibition. Reidie, nimble as a harlequin, retreated, whereon his man advanced, and would not be forced to a rally, getting down so provokingly that Harry was several times well-nigh irritated into a foul blow. The bystanders, too—many of them West End swells—pulled up the stakes, and the ropes were soon missing. Accordingly, as a reporter says, “the men were fighting out of one field into another, and Jones could not get a chance of planting a successful hit.” “Only stand still,” said the Sailor Boy, “and see what will be the matter.” “I’m not such a fool, although I may look one,” replied the Colonel, and then with his thumb to his nose he executed a backward double shuffle, nobbed Harry slightly, and slipped his heels from under his hams, dropping on his South Pole with a grin. After two hours and three-quarters, in which both men were but slightly punished, Reidie’s tactics triumphed, and Jones was so exhausted and baffled that he resigned the contest!
On September 21st, 1824, Jones, for the third time, entered the lists with Ned Stockman, at the “Old May Pole,” Epping Forest, for £25 a-side. After seventeen rounds, twenty-three minutes, Jones was again defeated.
A week only after this defeat, after the bull-baiting on Old Oak Common, on Tuesday, September 28th, 1824, Frederick Edwards, a coachman, of some pretensions to boxing, offered to meet Jones for a purse that had been subscribed. Stockman seconded Jones, Reuben Martin united upon Edwards. Jones’s skill, combined with caution, enabled him to get over the ground in style, and in an hour and a half the coachman gave in, confessing that even a good amateur must knock under to a professional.