Shaw had been introduced to boxing as a boy, during an era when prizefighting could be either an illegal hole-in-the-wall activity or a sanctioned, staged competition. Modern boxing derived from the English bare-knuckle pugilism of the 18th century; the English champion, Daniel Mendoza, “the fighting Jew,” had first visited Ireland in 1791. He popularized the sport with touring exhibitions, fighting in farmers’ fields and villages around the country. The Irish took to boxing as if fighting was their birthright, and in later years, fans flocked to fights pitting the sons of St. Patrick against visiting English boxers, if only because the events seemed a symbolic staging of the ongoing Anglo-Irish conflict. One of Shaw’s boyhood memories was of a prizefighter who was so terrified of injury or death that he kept a mirror in the ring. Even when winning, the fighter only consented to persevere when he could see his face between every round, to be assured that his features had not been obliterated.
Englishmen persuaded themselves that they, too, could use their fists, and were even naturally gifted at it, a presumption that Shaw considered as preposterous as claiming that every Frenchman could use a foil or every Italian a stiletto. In England, boxing was considered the most dramatically masculine of sports because of its association with the cradle of pugilism, ancient Greece. The poet Lord Byron called it a “noble art,” the sport in which competitors fought skillfully, displaying Olympian traits of the mind and spirit as well as of the body. The art of self-defense was considered as necessary for the education of a gentleman as dancing a minuet or speaking French. For the landed gentry, the possibility of being injured as an amateur fighter was actually an opportunity for a public show of raw courage and manliness. In typical upper-class understatement, it was often referred to as “the science of sweet bruising.”
One of Shaw’s favorite clowning poses was to throw his arms around his shoulders to represent himself as a physical coward. He had no intention of becoming involved with Beatty’s passion for gloved combat, but that didn’t deter the irrepressible poet from pressing Shaw to join him at the gym.
If found on a desolate mountain
A vulture his entrails shall gnaw
He’d choose just that place to argue the case
Argumentative George Bernard Shaw
“I am about to take boxing up from the scientific Ned Donnelly, a very amiable, though powerful, person in appearance,” Beatty wrote in September 1881. Addressing Shaw as Balzac, then one of Beatty’s favorite authors, he continued: “The meek Michelle, whom you would rashly have selected out of a room full to strike, is a phenomenon as an amateur bruiser. So much, O’Balzac, for your discrimination! If you wish, those pointers that I learn from the Donnelly I will teach unto you.”
Shaw apparently did not respond. Ten days later, his friend wrote again, “I send for your careful reading a copy of Donnelly’s admirable Self-Defense, the best book of its kind ever published. It explains very clearly what other writers leave in hopeless confusion. ‘I am a great man for the body — hit him here, the pit of my stomach,’ were his words of wisdom to me, ‘and he won’t come again.’” Beatty invited Shaw to dinner. “Articles of agreement as to boxing lessons can be drawn up,” he added.
Shaw certainly would have gone to dinner, for in the spirited Beatty household, he had found a home away from home, an affectionate family so unlike his own, among whom he could share laughter, mischief, ideas, conversation and genuine fun. The extended Beatty clan had embraced him, fondly dubbing their fastidious friend “Barbarossa” (red beard) and “old man Shaw.” To amuse the children, Barbarossa dug in the garden with them, read stories and sang. Once during a rainstorm, he climbed into bed fully dressed in his Jaeger boilersuit, opened all the windows and held open an umbrella to delight his small audience. He studied French with Beatty’s wife, Ida, flirted with her sisters, taught and played piano duets with members of the household, was a frequent guest at meals and met grandparents, cousins, in-laws, uncles and friends, becoming godfather to one child and a supporter of all.
When Beatty’s first child, nicknamed “Bertie,” was christened, the elderly godfather, the poet Richard Hengist Horne, gave the infant tiny boxing gloves and promised that he “shall be taught to lick anybody of his size, or half a head taller, who tries to bully him at first school or ‘fag’ him at second school.” Shaw wrote a comic poem with references to the father’s boxing friends and urged the baby to eat to reach fighting weight, warning the infant: “A boxer thou canst not rely on; His wife can but spoil thee with love.”
Friendship won out. Shaw finally agreed to visit the London Athletic Club, conveniently located in the Haymarket theatre district near busy Piccadilly Circus, a brisk 20-minute walk from his desk at the British Museum. As home to aristocrats of leisure and fine breeding, the club would not have been a natural habitat for either Shaw or Beatty. But the gym specialized in boxing, and Ned Donnelly, who had written the best-selling Self-Defense; Or, the Art of Boxing, was head coach and “professor” of the club’s most popular sport.
Many considered Donnelly the best instructor in London. A retired prizefighter with the commanding presence of a panther, Donnelly was often called “the Royal Professor” because when he was summoned to spar before the King, he immediately went out and bought a new top hat and frock coat. Shaw based a character on Donnelly, describing him thusly: “A powerful man with a thick neck that swelled out beneath his broad, flat earlobes. He had small eyes, and large teeth over which his lips were slightly parted in a smile, good-humored but affectedly cunning. His hair was black and close cut, his skin indurated, and the bridge of his nose smashed level with his face.” He was a modest and affable fellow when sober and unprovoked, Shaw wrote, and about 50 years old.
In the gym, there would have been other aspiring boxers and gentlemen pugilists in fitted shirts, knitted tights and soft, moccasin-like slippers warming up with pushups and by jumping rope, stretching on the bars, shadow boxing and sparring on mats or in the ring. (Like opera singers, boxers generally train and work out alone except when sparring with a partner.) For strength and balance training, a trapeze, flying rings, weights and dumbbells were traditionally used.
Coach Donnelly had revived a scientific method of fighting in the ring from earlier in the 18th century that could be blended with the new Queensberry rules of 1866. Donnelly’s method of scientific boxing made the sport a thinking man’s game with a series of stylistic movements for every parry and thrust. It appealed to gentlemen amateurs who could rely on the skills of practiced footwork and training, as opposed to a rough, knock-down-and-drag-out scrimmage that relied mostly on strength. Shaw always referred to unthinking brute force as simply “bashing.”
The old regulations allowed as many rounds as the combatants could sustain until one fighter was gravely injured or simply gave up from exhaustion; battles could last for a hundred rounds or more. The Queensberry rules called for padded gloves, three-minute rounds, ten-second knockdowns and a cap on the length of the fight. The new rules were created by the 8th Marquis of Queensberry, later known to Shaw as the father of Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, the young aristocrat who had a scandalous homosexual relationship with fellow playwright Oscar Wilde. Amateur fights were promoted in the army and public (private) schools. It was English violence, the wags said, disguised as English honor.
Shaw, looking for inspiration for his writing and a new connection in life for himself, became intrigued with the unconventionality, the hardihood and the inherent danger of the game, as well as the camaraderie and serious-minded atmosphere among those learning Donnelly’s “science.” In addition, prizefighting was one of the few sports that offered a way out of poverty to the disenfranchised and underprivileged, a social reality that Shaw, the emerging socialist, appreciated.
Beatty, the one with the funds, paid the club dues for both. Shaw purchased a pair of five-pound dumbbells for himself.
Nothing in Shaw’s life had prepared him for the surge in confidence and adrenaline, for the vitality he would experience concentrating on the rudiments of trading punches while feinting, jabbing and becoming agile on his feet. He agreed with Lord Byron, who had boasted