Tom Molineaux’s story is legendary, full of triumphs and defeats. Born a slave in the United States during the late 1700s, Molineaux gained his freedom after years of boxing in tournaments for his owner. A brash, talented fighter, Molineaux traveled to England to challenge the greatest boxer of the day, Tom Cribb.

The second of two bare knuckle fights between the champion Tom Cribb (who won both times) and Tom Molineaux, a former slave and the first American challenger to the title.

Amid the extravagance and excess stand 18 powerfully built figures, whose imposing presence causes many of the nobles and dignitaries present to gasp in wonder and appreciation. It had been 17 years since Richmond had first ventured into the glamorous but dangerous world of the London prize ring and he was now retired, but his achievements as a bare-knuckle boxer, or "pugilist", to borrow the Georgian term of choice, were impeccable. Therefore it strikes me as a staggering collective omission by sports and social historians that the story of Bill Richmond has scarcely been told – as well as a shocking failure of imagination, given that the unlikely narrative of his life is worthy of a Hollywood movie. Percy brought Richmond to the North of England, paying for his tuition in reading and writing and then setting him up with a cabinet-making apprenticeship, an unusually high level of formal education for a black man living in Britain at this time. Certainly the men, at one stage, shared a fierce rivalry – Cribb had, after all, defeated Richmond in the ring in 1805, before also vanquishing his protégé, Tom Molineaux, in a pair of controversial championship contests in 1810 and 1811. "You all lov'd Richmond once," he emphasised at one point, a sentiment that could seem like a trite rhetorical flourish but, coming from Cribb, who also admitted that his "heart is slumbering in that shell with Billy", it was a line that, for me, achieved significant emotional resonance. Whether in the boxing ring, while walking the streets or while tending the bar of the Horse and Dolphin – the public house which became a focal point for London's black community after Richmond's fight earnings enabled him to become landlord between 1810 and 1812 – the threat of racial taunts and violence was ever-present for Bill. Those who met him frequently referred to his excellent manners, witty conversation and intelligence, as well as his ability to tell amusing "milling anecdotes" – a series of qualities that put paid to the bigoted but widespread perception at the time that black people were intellectually inferior to whites. Pierce Egan, the writer who was a key factor in popularising the exploits of Georgian boxers, wrote at length about Richmond's intellect in the first volume of his journal, Boxiana, declaring: "He is intelligent, communicative, and well-behaved; and however actively engaged in promulgating the principles of milling, he is not so completely absorbed with fighting as to be incapable of discoursing on any other subject." Impressively, Richmond was also a man of iron self-control; in retirement, unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not become corpulent and dissolute, but retained his trim, muscular features, and remained largely abstemious in his approach to alcohol, with The Morning Post observing that he seldom took "more than a glass of sherry and water". Fight to the top: artworks by the Guyanese artist Trevor Von Eeden depicting Bill Richmond’s upbringing in a parsonage (left); and his links to nobilityRichmond was also endowed with the business sense and altruistic spirit of a social entrepreneur. These were arguably the two most significant sporting occasions of Georgian times, attracting huge crowds and unprecedented press attention, and Richmond was a key figure in brokering and promoting both bouts. Richmond wouldn't have known this in 1821, of course, but as he stood at the heart of coronation festivities – a black man thriving within a bastion of white privilege – he could have been forgiven for pausing to reflect just how far he had travelled, and how remarkable a life and career he had already led. (source: Independent) How it works?

A silver cup worth eighty guineas was presented to 'national hero' Tom Cribb (1811) in recognition of his two victories against the American challenger Molineaux.

This is a story about boxing and race and Englishness and legend and the nineteenth century. It's a very good story.