Barton-Wright’s Later Years
At some unspecified point, probably in mid-late 1902, Barton-Wright had a falling-out with his “star” champion and instructor, Tani Yukio. According to Barton-Wright’s own report of the incident, recorded forty-eight years later when he was interviewed by Gunji Koizumi, Tani had been “troublesome” and had not been keeping appointments. When Barton-Wright proposed to dock his wages, Tani threatened him and the argument developed into a physical fight, which Barton-Wright claimed to have won.
Shortly thereafter, the Bartitsu Club closed its doors for the last time. Subsequent speculation had it that the enrollment and tuition fees were too high. Cherpillod returned to Switzerland, where he continued to work as a professional wrestler. He also became instrumental in introducing Jiujitsu, which he had learned from his fellow Bartitsu Club instructors, to Germany and other countries on the European continent. Tani, Uyenishi and Vigny all remained in London and established their own self defence schools, with the Japanese instructors focussing on their native art while Vigny continued the tradition of eclecticism.
Tani made the best of it, by joining forces with an experienced show business promoter named William Bankier, a colourful character who had been a successful variety hall strongman under the name “Apollo, the Scottish Hercules.” Bankier’s shrewd management quickly established Tani as a star performer, a great novelty in the popular field of professional wrestling, and the fame of his jiujitsu spread throughout England and then all of Europe.
Unfortunately for Barton-Wright, the new-found popularity of jiujitsu and then judo completely eclipsed that of Bartitsu, and in the self defence craze that followed between 1905 and 1914, he found himself on the sidelines of the movement that he had started. Although Barton-Wright reportedly continued to teach Bartitsu into the 1920s, he never again achieved the public prominence of his heyday between 1899 and 1903.
After the Bartitsu Club closed down in 1902, Barton-Wright continued his work in electrotherapy at various clinics around London. Because he had no formal medical training, he was often viewed with suspicion by the medical establishment and was the subject of several lawsuits. With the advantage of a hundred years of hindsight, we can say that the therapies that he was promoting were of varying quality. Some, like the Ultra-Violet Ray Lamp and the Thermo-Penetration Machine, were among the early ancestors of modern cosmetic and medical apparatus (the sun bed and diathermy machine, respectively). Other devices were of questionable value and some of them may actually have been quite harmful.
In any case, Barton-Wright persisted in this field for the rest of his career, eventually coming to specialise in the use of various heat and vibration treatments to alleviate the pain of rheumatism. By the time Gunji Koizumi tracked him down for an interview, in 1950, Barton-Wright was a spry elder of ninety years, full of old war stories and evidently still proud of his art of Bartitsu. Later that year, he was presented to the audience at a large Budokwai gathering in London; but sadly he was never really to receive the accolades owing to him as the true pioneer of the Japanese martial arts in the English-speaking world.
Edward William Barton-Wright died in 1951 and, according to the late martial art historian Richard Bowen, was buried in “a pauper’s grave, because there was no money for a proper grave.”
[Originally written by Tony Wolf 15/02/07]
