Gawain Douglas recounts the extraordinary history of pugilism, from the sport of ancient Greeks and the bare-knuckle bouts of the 18th and 19th-centuries through to boxing in the ring as we now know it. Lord Gawain Douglas, great grandson of the 9th Marquis of Queensberry, who devised the famous ‘Queensberry Rules’, draws from family records and his own library to bring us a fascinating account of this gladiatorial art. The talk is punctuated with poems, anecdotes, illustrations and artefacts which reflect the close relationship between the turf and the ring where men, like racehorses, were treated as chattels.

Duration: 60 mins approx.