Jack Johnson in Epping Forest

Unforgivable Blackness⁵ describes the life of Jack Johnson. At first sight perhaps not my usual fare, but nevertheless an interesting read. Jack Johnson was the heavyweight-boxing champion of the world. He won the title against the Canadian, Tommy Burns, in Sydney on Boxing Day, 1908.

Jack Johnson was American, black, and the first black champion. He had developed a formidable reputation as a boxer, primarily defensive, skilful and fast rather than a heavy puncher. From his winning of the title, a search started to find a white boxer to hand him a beating. An earlier champion James J. Jeffries, highly regarded, and white, was believed to have the best chance against Johnson. However, initially when offered the opportunity he had refused to fight a Negro. "drawing the colour line", but eventually Jeffries was persuaded out of retirement to fight Johnson. On 4 July 1910, after protracted negotiations, the much-celebrated fight took place in Reno, Nevada. The fight attracted huge interest with the expectation that Johnson would be beaten, but instead he was to knock out Jeffries in the fifteenth round. Jeffries was the first of the 'Great White Hopes', to be followed by a succession of moderately talented challengers. Now Jack Johnson was the most famous black man in the world.

In September 1911, the champion was in Europe with the planned intent of fighting 'Bombardier' Billy Wells of England, another "Hope". To escape the tirade of the French press, Johnson returned to England on 23 September. Unforgivable Blackness mentions that once in England, the Johnsons, for he was married to a white woman, made their way to a 'new training camp in Epping Forest". His training camp had earlier been transferred from Whetstone to a base at the Royal Forest Hotel, Chingford; it is possible that the training involved running in Epping Forest and exhibition bouts in Walthamstow. Chingford was away from the crowds of Central London that inevitably followed the champion, but hotels in the centre were reluctant to give him a room.

In a clear, reasoned and lengthy assessment in The Times⁶ of the relative strengths of the two boxers, and their chances, it was commented that the Englishman was "inferior in strength and stamina and in the capacity of enduring punishment *. Furthermore, Wells was said to have "a drooping chin and swan-like neck", neither characteristic usually to the advantage of a heavyweight boxer! Johnson's 'one weak point in his physique seems to be his stomach, that instrument of unaccustomed pleasures for a coloured Texan brought up on the nutritious but unenlivening corn-cake" - the correspondent of The Times for once betraying in the stereotype an inner prejudice.

There are some further details to the background of the contest that are necessary to understand Johnson's stay in Epping Forest. The thought of watching a prize-fight was not to all tastes, especially one between black and white, and worse in this fight the black man was married to a white woman. There were two sources of objection. The National Free Church Council, headed by Charles Brown, the President, and the vociferous Reverend F. B. Meyer, the Hon. Secretary, sought a ban on the fight because "to gratify that craving for the sensational and brutal which is inconsistent with the manhood that makes a great nation *. ⁷ The Archbishop of Canterbury in a letter to The Times "shared the indignation", and stated that he had written to the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, about halting the fight.⁸ Other bishops followed along with the heads of numerous schools, colleges and other reputable foundations. Even the Empire in the persons of the bishops of Grahamstown and Uganda joined the controversy. The second source of objection was surprisingly from Lord Lonsdale of the National Sporting Club who thought the "profit motive was always most undesirable" and "boxing contests should be essentially and primarily a matter of science *; almost certainly Lord Lonsdale feared a mismatch. Churchill was persuaded that the promotion of the fight was illegal in view of the likely expected disturbance leading to a breach of the peace.° Summonses were issued against the boxers, managers and the promoter, James White. A somewhat unnerved detective-sergeant served the summons on Johnson at the Royal Forest Hotel on 26 September during Johnson's rub-down. Court proceedings were held. Johnson was articulate and very capable, and at the hearing defended himself. At the same time, the Metropolitan Railway Company, the freeholders of the Empress Hotel, Earls Court, the venue for the fight, were seeking an injunction preventing the fight taking place there. On 27 September, the judge granted the requested injunction.¹⁰

The Times expressed 'much satisfaction that the boxing match ... will not take place on British soil".¹¹ The decision was claimed as consistent with "the broad grounds of public interest". Quoting a report of precisely one century earlier. The Times in its leader notes that * the relations between white and black have undergone a vast change in the last century". The Times had opposed the fight "in the belief that it was contrary to the best interests of the Empire." Citing the "unparalleled responsibilities" of the Empire it was "impossible to ignore the widespread effect which this contest must undoubtedly have had where "colour feeling" unhappily exists"! The decision was apparently not based on any personal feelings towards either Johnson or Wells. Johnson was stated to have an "acute brain".

The promoter attempted to arrange for the fight to be transferred to Paris, but Johnson missed the negotiations. He left for Paris, on the 29 September, saying that he intended to retire - he didn't.

I contacted Mr Len Davis, editor of the Chingford Historical Society newsletter. Could the editor add to the above? The following anecdote was the response:

In 1913 a Mr Jack Johnson, who was the first black boxing champion of America, came to England to give exhibition bouts. He had a week at Walthamstow for which he stayed at the Royal Forest Hotel, Chingford. On the Saturday moming he was due to go to France, he came out to his car but it would not start, so my father was called in as he was the only Motor Engineer in the district. Most of the cars at that time had their petrol tanks behind the driver's seat. Two thirds were petrol and one third oil. My father found that the oil was leaking into the petrol stopping it from vaporising. I was quite a little lad at the time and it seemed to me that all Chingford was in front of the Hotel, watching my father repair Mr Johnson's car. When the repair was finished and the engine started, my father rode on the running board as far as the Woolwichh Ferry to make sure everything was in order. Mr Johnson gave my father five Golden Sovereigns, worth a lot of money in those days .* ¹²

This is a typical anecdote. Johnson had a passion for cars . . . and for the ladies ... spending hugely on both, but he was generous. However, his success in the ring and his flamboyance, even arrogance, in an era when black men could exhibit neither provoked angry reaction within the white community particularly across the Atlantic. The reporting of the Johnson-Wells fight in The Times provides revealing insights into the contrived racial attitudes of a century ago.