A Government Prison where Harmless People are Trapped: Regency Poets and Victorian Asylums

Abstract

Branwell Brontë possibly pitched up in London sometime towards the end of 1835 with the intention of studying art at the Royal Academy. Yet instead he may have frequented the haunts of prizefighters before returning to Haworth to play what was to become his favourite part of the prodigal son. He may have been spotted by an acquaintance at the Castle Tavern in High Holborn. This was owned by Tom Spring, who had been Champion of England before swelling the ranks of old pugs who kept pubs. It had previously been owned by other famous fighters such as Bob Gregson and Tom Belcher. Branwell prided himself on speaking the flash and playful patter of the boxing fraternity, picked up from reading old copies of Blackwood’s as well as from the sporting press more generally. The first (and indeed second) rule of fight club was not to talk about fight club except in this coded language. Exhibition matches and sparring, with gloves or mufflers, were within the law: Branwell himself belonged for a while to a boxing club in Haworth. Prizefighting itself like duelling was nevertheless illegal, which was an important part of its appeal. The world of the Fancy offered Branwell the opportunity to escape from responsibilities like finding a career into an underworld in which heavy drinking was not just accepted but expected. The drugs were to come later, partly as a result of a copycat reaction to De Quincey’s Confessions. He created real as well as imaginary infernal worlds.¹