JEM MACE For My Mate GJC

[McGoorty]

"Jem Mace was the first pugilist to study out the scientific side of boxing. It is to him that we owe the changes which have elevated the sport"
Jim Corbett, first World Heavyweight Champion under Queensberry Rules. 1910



"Nothing will shake my conviction that Mace was the cleverest man of any weight that ever fought in a ring, either with gloves or bare knuckles. He was the greatest exponent of the gospel of the straight left and a supreme artist and master of his craft"
Bernard John Angle, world famous boxing referee.1925


"Great as Mace was when fighting under London Rules, it was as a glove artist that he appeared at his best. He discouraged bare fist fighting and brought public attention to the use of the mitts. He did more to foster the pure science of boxing than any other man of his era and was one of the greatest ring men with the gloves that boxing has produced".
Nat Fleischer, founder of The Ring magazine. 1957


"Great and glorious a fighter as he was in his prime, he was even greater as a scientific boxer. He had a tremendously hard punch but it was chiefly his marvellous boxing ability which carried him to the top of the fistic tree and enabled him to present an unbattered face to the world in his old age".
Peter McInnes, boxing writer. 1998

[McGoorty]

NOT QUITE AN AMERICAN

Jem Mace visited the U.S. many times and considered settling in either New York or San Francisco. He named one of his sons Benjamin Franklin Mace and he adorned his boxing booth in England with the Stars and Stripes.

But Hollywood neatly airbrushed out his status as the Father of Boxing. As an Englishman, he did not fit the need for an all-American father for the ultimate American sport. Biopics such as 'The Great John L.' and ' Gentleman Jim' would install Irish- Americans John L. Sullivan and Jim Corbett in the fistic pantheon.

But it was not Sullivan- a fighter proclaiming his allegiance to the Queensberry Rules but ready to flout them when it suited his purposes- who transformed the outlawed sport of prizefighting. Nor was it Corbett, who freely admitted that the transition from prizefighting to glove boxing was principally the work of Mace.

Few of America's future boxing heroes would be able to name Jem Mace as the father of their sport but, in the ******s and barrios of America's great cities, his legacy has endured.

The UNMARKED GRAVE

Jem Mace died in Jarrow on November 30 1910. On December 6, at Anfield Cemetery, Liverpool, he was laid to rest in a grave with no headstone and only a perfunctory numerical marker.

Though he had died penniless, a fitting memorial could easily have been subscribed by any of numerous wealthy persons who, in his lifetime, he had splendidly entertained. But Jem Mace did not fit the need for a gentlemanly hero of English sport.

Unlike England's cricket captain C.B. Fry, Mace was not educated at Repton and Oxford. He was the son of a roving rural working man and, deprived of all education, remained illiterate for the first 30 years of his life.
Stigmatised -- whether accurately or not -- as a gypsy, his early life as a travelling violinist, his background in the 'sinful' world of the circus and his empathy with and appeal to women evoked the resentment of the righteous -- who were only too keen for him to be speedily forgotten.

It would take until the next century for a proper memorial to be placed at the grave, thanks to the Merseyside Former Boxers Association.

[McGoorty]

JEM MACE In His PRIME

[McGoorty]

JEM MACE and Gentleman JIM CORBETT

[McGoorty]

The Great JEM MACE In Action.

[McGoorty]

Only The Greats Get Their Very Own Statue

[GJC]

Nice work Mac
You don't actually transcribe these articles do you? There is a trick?
Like to know because I've got so many boxing books I'd like to put in articles from

[Pastrano]

Man, you really put lotta work and soul into this, good work. I must say, he didnt look like he had gypsy blood and he himself denied it. As he was obviously not a racist, this must have been the truth.

[McGoorty]

Nice work Mac
You don't actually transcribe these articles do you? There is a trick?
Like to know because I've got so many boxing books I'd like to put in articles from

I just learnt from Poet, I think there is a different technique to doing your own books. If you have a scanner you may be able to post these. I got these straight off the net. I type in any fighter I'm interested in on google, then look for articles that are good. When I find one I think would be a good post or thread, I then hold left click on the first word then drag across and down then right click and click on the copy logo that pops up. --------------------------------------- Then go to thread you want to post on or start one of your own, when you have the box open left click there and then right click, then just click on paste in the box that pops up...... submit post or thread and Bob's your uncle.

[McGoorty]

Man, you really put lotta work and soul into this, good work. I must say, he didnt look like he had gypsy blood and he himself denied it. As he was obviously not a racist, this must have been the truth.

Gypsy or not, I doubt if many wanted to argue that fact with him, just too good a pugilist.