Edward William Barton-Wright
British engineer (1860–1951), creator of Bartitsu, a self-defence system combining jujutsu, boxing, savate and stick fighting, made famous by a mention in Conan Doyle.
Quick Facts
United KingdomBiography
Edward William Barton-Wright was a British engineer and the creator of Bartitsu, a self-defence system that combined Japanese jujutsu with boxing, savate and stick fighting. He was born on 8 November 1860 in Bangalore in British India and died on 13 September 1951 in Kingston upon Thames, aged 90.
He was the third of six children of a railway engineer. He studied in England, France and Germany, and from 1886 to 1892 he managed his father's mines near Odemira in Portugal. From about 1895 to 1898 he worked in Japan, where in Kobe, according to the Bartitsu Society, he learned Shinden Fudo-ryu under Terajima Kuniichiro, and he may have taken a few lessons from Jigoro Kano in Tokyo.
After returning to England in 1898 he named his system Bartitsu and in March and April 1899 presented it in Pearson's Magazine. In London he opened the Bartitsu School of Arms and Physical Culture on Shaftesbury Avenue, where jujutsu was taught by Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi and stick fighting by Pierre Vigny, whose system Barton-Wright incorporated into Bartitsu. The club ceased to operate around 1902.
He then worked as a physiotherapist and died in poverty. Arthur Conan Doyle used the form baritsu in the story The Adventure of the Empty House. Since 2002 his legacy has been revived by the Bartitsu Society, and in 2012 he received an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Early life
He was born on 8 November 1860 in Bangalore in India as the third of six children of the railway engineer William Barton Wright and his wife Janet. According to English Wikipedia he was originally called Edward William Wright and adopted the surname Barton-Wright in April 1892. He was educated at Dedham Grammar School in Essex and in France and Germany, and as a young man he travelled a great deal. From 1886 to 1892 he managed, without success, his father's mines near Odemira in Portugal.
Training and teachers
From about 1895 to 1898 he worked in Kobe as a specialist in antimony smelting for the firm E. H. Hunter. According to Tony Wolf of the Bartitsu Society he learned Shinden Fudo-ryu there under Terajima Kuniichiro together with the Dutch anthropologist Herman ten Kate. According to the same source he may have taken a few lessons from Jigoro Kano at the Kodokan in Tokyo. He took over stick fighting from the Swiss professor of arms Pierre Vigny, whose system, put together after fifteen years of work, he had recently incorporated into Bartitsu, in his own words.
Contribution and innovations
He returned to England at the beginning of 1898 and named his combined system Bartitsu. The article The New Art of Self Defence appeared in two parts in Pearson's Magazine in March and April 1899, and the article Self-Defence with a Walking Stick in January and February 1901. He summed up the principles in three points: to throw the attacker off balance, to surprise him before he regains it, and possibly to subject his joints to a strain that they cannot anatomically withstand. At the club at 67B Shaftesbury Avenue, jujutsu was taught by Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi, and savate and stick fighting by Pierre Vigny. The last great London exhibition took place in December 1901 at St James's Hall, and at the beginning of 1902 he organised the tour Great Anglo-Japanese Tournament.
Legends and documented facts
The year the school opened differs. The Bartitsu Society gives 1899 and English Wikipedia 1900. Its closure is also given differently. The Bartitsu Society writes that the school ceased to operate in the middle of 1902 in unclear circumstances, Wikipedia that it was closed by 1903. Pierre Vigny was a teacher at the club, but we have not found evidence that he taught Barton-Wright personally. He died on 13 September 1951 in poverty and, according to the Bartitsu Society, was buried in a common grave at the cemetery in Kingston.
Legacy
After the club closed he worked as a physiotherapist. In 1910 a lawsuit by a former employee drove him to bankruptcy, and from 1938 he had a clinic at home in Surbiton. In 1950 he gave an interview to Gunji Koizumi, the founder of the Budokwai club in London. His articles were discovered in the British Library by Richard Bowen, and from 2001 the website EJMAS published them again. The Bartitsu Society was founded in 2002 and published the Bartitsu Compendium, in 2012 he received an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and he was commemorated by an exhibition at Marylebone Library.
Associated Martial Arts
Organisations
- Bartitsu School of Arms and Physical CultureFounder · 1900–1903
Quotes
to disturb the equilibrium of your assailant, to surprise him before he has time to regain his balance and use his strength