There is now a generation of which they term themselves martial arts historians. Now I have a view of historians and I may add only my view, and I pass it on to no one. And that is looking back at history and historians. At the time so many admired historians where in effect a mixture of old spin doctor and propagandists, and thus tended to give at best a jaundiced view of the history of there time, not forgetting the establishment and vested interest who paid them.
Now I do admire historians who give a broad view and a researched account leaving room for further enlightenment, however caution must be observed when we are looking at the history of martial systems of Europe and its influence from Japan. Most importantly our Great Nation, Great Brittan, for some reason the starting point seems to be in our country the middle 1950s and in Japan 1946/7 Japan it seems had national amnesia for over 30 years or so and woke up feeling refreshed and benevolent to all mankind.
So how very easy it is to forget martial practitioners of over a hundred years ago now, and write them out of history or even make them a none person. Plenty as been written about Edward W Barton Wright, and his activities, but more on him at a later date, as I wish to use this small space to introduce you to some real characters, which deserve there, place in our nation’s martial history?
So let’s start in the year 1900 the year that held out so much promise and hope to the world. There where so many larger than life characters who where early practitioners and adepts of what at that time was referred to as antagonistics, and I intend to say a few words about those few I personally knew, however I am convinced that so many have been lost in time and forgotten and the Great War WW1 decimated society. But if you personally know of any of those early practitioners I would be more than delighted to hear. As they deserve their place in our history and not wrote out by Mc-DO and Co. so I would first like to start with a famous instructor in the City of Liverpool Jack Britten.
Jack was born in London and started hit training in the old Anglo Japanese Jujitsu institute in London, he was also a boxer who eared in the boxing booths at that time, and he looked every inch a scraper, he studied under Yukio Tani, Sadakazu Uyenishi, and the Japanese who stayed in London whilst in transit to other European capitals and even to south America where what eventually would be known as Gracie Jujitsu would emerge, in those days it was a practice to style oneself as professor, this was quite common, hence Professor Jack Britten, He fought in the first world war from 1914- 1918, and many the story to tell of the unbelievable hardships and the hand to hand combat in trench warfare, he had a dreadful scar on his hand warding off a bayonet in which he nearly lost the hand the blade had just missed the tendon but it was the infection the was the real problem.
With the end of the war in 1918 Jack eventually returned to London, alas with so many of our brave fighting men who we sent out of the front door with flags and bands playing they came home through the back door, to a society changed forever, after 6 years of hell these brave men where not the same boys that had left. So as with so many Jack wondered the south of England looking for work.
Sometime in 1921 he came to Liverpool and opened a pet shop in Smithdown Place, and above he established a Ju-Jutsu School, it is not certain when he moved but thought that he made his move in the 1930s to Shiell Road, Kensington, Liverpool, taking over a very large house that had 5 tatami rooms, he still called it the Alpha School of Jujitsu, and until his death it remained a full time school teaching the same system he was taught by the first Japanese instructors he did not go dawn the Kano JiJitsu (Judo) road, and as with many men in his position he was an instructor to a variety of constabularies, in the 1950, many of his students would go on to make their mark on Jujutsu and Karate . In the next part I will go on and give some details of the Alpha School of JiuJitsu (Jujutsu)
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