Volume 13 of the Martial Arts Studies journal offers this well-researched piece on the history of the still little-known British Ju-jitsu Society. Along with the London Budokwai, the BJJS fostered the continued study of Japanese martial arts in England during the 1920s and ’30s, building on the legacies of the Bartitsu Club, the Golden Square dojo and the Japanese School of Jujutsu.
Nice to see the research on the influential Handa dojo, pioneered by Tony Wolf, Joe Svinth and Lance Gatling back in 2007-8, making its way into academic journals.
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According to an item in the Morning Leader of Tuesday, 29 November 1898, the entertainments for an upcoming charity bazaar were scheduled to include:
Mr. E. W. Barton- Wright (who) will on Friday and Saturday give a demonstration of Bartitsu, the new art of self defence and show some Japanese wrestling. He will also explain and expose the simplicity with which certain well-known feats of strength are performed.
Although Barton-Wright gave a number of jujutsu demonstrations during late 1898, this is the first and only known report of his demonstrating “feats of strength”. Those feats were almost certainly among those he described in his Pearson’s Magazine article “How to Pose as a Strong Man,” which was published two months after the charity event.
The Leader of Thursday, 29 June 1899 included the following short article, which is the only known example of Barton-Wright himself promoting the Bartitsu Club prior to its opening:
“BARTITSU” CLUB, WHERE ALL THE LATEST SELF-DEFENCE ARTS WILL BE TAUGHT.
“Bartitsu,” be it known, is the art of self-defence, and a club is being formed where this art in all its phases will be practised.
“It will be purely a sports club,” explained Mr. Barton-Wright to a Morning Leader representative, “where men and women, girls and boys, can be instructed in fencing, sabre play, la savate, boxing, and Bartitsu.”
The club will be somewhere in Piccadilly. One special feature will be the instruction of members, especially lady members, in the art of defending themselves with a walking stick
“As you know, I have given exhibitions of Japanese wrestling, which art I am now teaching to certain well-known society leaders. But for the Bartitsu Club, which is to be a limited company, I am going over to Japan to secure some of the best instructors in certain of Japanese wrestling. I have lived and travelled in nearly every country on the globe and this is the most perfect form of self-defence. It is one that, with a little study, can be acquired by women equally as well as men and once learnt is never forgotten. Classes will be arranged, and instruction given privately. We are expecting a full complement of members from the beginning.”
The Hampshire Post and Southsea Observer of Friday, 24 March 1899 adds a hitherto unknown third verse to the “Bartitsu” poem quoted in several other newspapers around that time:
This volume presents four parts: a “narrative social history” (pp 11-163), a collection of articles previously on the Web (pp 164-442), techniques and tactics (pp 443-545), and “20 years of revival” (pp 546-626).
This book represents an amazing accomplishment by the author and his colleagues. They lost a lot of online content due to technical issues, but recovered and published that material here. I am a fan of publishing blog and related information in formats like this as an insurance policy against technical failures and “Web or link rot.”
I noted in the text the claim that Barton-Wright (1860-1951) apparently trained Shinden Fudo Ryu jujutsu for about 3 years with Terajima Kuniichiro and “took some lessons” with Kano starting around 1895, when the pair were each about 35 years old.
Here are a few sample pages for flavor:
If you are interested in Bartitsu, you need this book.
The letter to the editor of the Daily Chronicle that inspired this cartoon referred to the advantages of wicker-work shields (which actually were in use by some police departments during the late 1880s) and noted that the quarterstaff should be studded with nails to prevent it from being seized by opponents. The fireworks and squibs, electric rattle, shocking wires, water tank etc. were embellishments by the cartoonist.
Some more light, speculative Bartitsu-style unarmed sparring from the Highland Broadsword Society. Note the savate inflections and the moment of standing grappling.
Milling the fists and destructive elbow blocks are characteristic of the “secret style of boxing” believed to have been developed by Barton-Wright and Vigny.
Sans kicks, an edited compilation of key moments from a bout at vintage fisticuffs.
The incursion of Edward Barton-Wright’s New Art of Self Defence into modern pop-culture continues via the new Street Fighter 6 fighting game, in which the main villain, known as “JP”, is portrayed as a Bartitsu expert.
JP’s “Bartitsu” bears a similarly tangential relationship to the real fighting style, not least because JP also possesses magical or psionic powers that enable him to do significant damage without ever getting close to his opponents. That said, his kicking attacks are reasonable approximations of both high and low savate kicks, some of his cane attacks are at least in the real-world ballpark and he occasionally pulls off a jujutsu-like throw. It’s even possible that his idiosyncratic kneeling defensive posture may have been loosely inspired by actual Vigny cane fighting techniques:
These bouts of light, technical pugilism sparring are also a good approximation of Bartitsu boxing as alluded to and partially described, but unfortunately never detailed, by E.W. Barton-Wright. Note especially the use of “chopper” (hammerfist) punches and destructive elbow guards.
