In March 1899, readers of the London-based journal Pearson's Magazine were intrigued to learn that a "New Art of Self Defence" had been introduced to England by E.W. Barton-Wright. Barton-Wright was an engineer by profession, and had spent the previous three years living and working in Japan. You can read his biography by clicking on the portrait to the left.
Under Bartitsu is included boxing, or the use of the fist as a hitting medium, the use of the feet both in an offensive and defensive sense, the use of the walking stick as a means of self-defence.
Judo and jujitsu, which were secret styles of Japanese wrestling, he would call close play as applied to self-defence. In order to ensure as far as it was possible immunity against injury in cowardly attacks or quarrels, they must understand boxing in order to thoroughly appreciate the danger and rapidity of a well-directed blow, and the particular parts of the body which were scientifically attacked.
The same, of course, applied to the use of the foot or the stick. Judo and jujitsu were not designed as primary means of attack and defence against a boxer or a man who kicks you, but were only to be used after coming to close quarters, and in order to get to close quarters it was absolutely necessary to understand boxing and the use of the foot. (Barton-Wright, 1902: 261)
By combining traditional English boxing, French savate, stick-fighting and Japanese jiu-jitsu, Barton-Wright established himself as a pioneer of eclectic self-defence training.
The Bartitsu Society is a non-profit educational and research organisation. The Society has three goals:
1) To preserve classical Bartitsu through research and reconstruction of the self defence techniques promoted by E.W. Barton-Wright.
Classical Bartitsu comprises some forty techniques that Barton-Wright adapted from several different fighting styles. Although he wrote that Bartitsu comprised over three hundred techniques, we have no direct record of the remaining two hundred and sixty; thus, the Society maintains his original selection as a "canon," a common technical and tactical vocabulary.
2) To develop Bartitsu as a self-defence system combining classical (19th century) fighting styles
Society members also continue Barton-Wright's research, inspired by, but not bound to the original Bartitsu system. These "neo-Bartitsu" methods draw from classical boxing; savate and the street-fighting techniques of les Apaches ("hooligans" of the Montmartre district of Paris;) Pierre Vigny's art of self-defence with a walking stick; and ko-ryu (old-school) Jiujitsu, amongst other methods.
3) To research and promote Victorian- and Edwardian-era combatives and related activities
The Bartitsu Society also researches physical culture exercises, military hand-to-hand combat systems, combat sports and other aspects of self-defence training during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.