The cemetery descended into chaos as people climbed trees and trampled tombstones, hoping for a better view. When he died a few years later, the funeral procession stretched for two miles and included some 100,000 people. Even the Prime Minister of the day, Lord Palmerston attended Parliament shortened its hours especially and Queen Victoria asked to be informed of the result. Special trains were chartered to transport the spectators, who included fellow Victorian superstars like the novelists Charles Dickens and William Thackeray. His final match, which he fought largely one-handed in a Hampshire field, was watched by thousands. This was England’s first bare-knuckle fighting champion. It was the winter of 1865 and Sayers, who began his career as an illiterate bricklayer, had risen to become the most celebrated sportsman of the Victorian age. We shake our heads blankly.Īt the time of his death the situation was very different. Our guide asks the group if anyone has heard of this man. An inscription reads “Erected to the memory of Thomas Sayers”. The stone is mottled and tendrils of strangling ivy are creeping up its base. It’s long and box-like, with a life-sized sculpture of a dog slumped at its foot. I’m in the secluded western corner of London’s Highgate cemetery, looking at a large marble tomb.
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