A statue of William Abednego Thompson, a well known bare-knuckle boxer of the early 19th century above the former Hermitage pub, Sneinton, Nottingham.
The statue stands in the 'Southpaw stance' above the entrance, and appears to be about life size (from this vantage point). Apparently Bendigo’s hands were replaced at some point due to public demand because they had started disintegrating. This suggests that it is constructed from a stone prone to weathering, although it appears to have been whitewashed, which makes identification of said stone difficult.
The tree in front of the old pub is enormous, and there are limited angles to get a photograph from.
The pub "was named after its famous resident, the Old Wrestlers pub was converted to Bendigo's in 1957 and became a popular pub among Sneinton locals. Ironically the pub was forced to close in the late 1990s due to brawling but re-opened as The Hermitage in 1999 and remained for a further decade before closing again in 2009. As of 2013 the building has been renovated and is used for private events, although the statue of Thompson above the entrance still remains and locals commonly refer to the site as Bendigo`s or The Bendigo to this day."
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"William Abednego Thompson, better known as Bendigo, was arguably England’s greatest bare-knuckle boxer and one of Nottingham’s most famous exports - he even has a town named after him in Australia (well, kind of... an early Oz farmer/gold miner was also a bare-knuckle boxer, his style was reminiscent of our Bendigo and so the nickname stuck. When his ranch grew to a town, it took upon his adopted name)."
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"Bendigo, byname of William Thompson (born October 11, 1811, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England—died August 23, 1880, Beeston, Nottinghamshire), English bare-knuckle boxer who became a Methodist evangelist and who is one of the few athletes whose name is borne by a city—Bendigo in Victoria, Australia. His nickname apparently is a corruption of the Old Testament name Abednego. Thompson was one of triplets; the other two were nicknamed Shadrach and Meshach, alluding to the names of Daniel’s three companions from the Book of Daniel.
Born into an impoverished family of 21 children, Thompson was sent to the workhouse with his mother upon the death of his father. Soon after, he became an ironworker, a career that greatly improved his strength. By age 18 he had started prizefighting, and by 21 he had become a professional boxer. In the course of his pugilistic career (1832–50), Bendigo lost only one fight, a defeat to Benjamin Caunt in 1838. Caunt, however, outweighed him by more than 40 pounds, and the fight was lost when Bendigo was judged to have committed a foul by falling without having received a blow. (In bare-knuckle fighting, rounds were of an indefinite length, but, when a boxer was hit and put at least one knee to the mat, the round was ended, and the boxer had a definite time period by which he had to be ready for the next round. In order to prevent fighters from going down anytime they felt challenged by an opponent, when a boxer fell without being hit, it was considered a foul. Bendigo was considered to be a master of the ploy of stopping a round to get a rest when things looked unpromising in the ring.) In 1839 Bendigo won the English championship by beating James (“Deaf”) Burke. Bendigo retired briefly but then returned to win the disputed title of champion of England from Caunt in 1845; this time it was Caunt who committed the foul. Bendigo’s last fight, again won because of a foul committed by his opponent, was in 1850.
Because fistfighting was a breach of the peace, Bendigo was arrested after most of his fights. Further, he was frequently imprisoned for excessive drinking and brawling after his retirement from the ring. During his periods of incarceration, he heard many sermons from the prison chaplain, and one of these sermons eventually inspired him to attend a revival and try to amend his life. He had a religious conversion and became a preacher. The language of his own sermons was described as quaint, but he drew huge crowds wherever he preached.
He was so highly regarded in Nottingham that a monument to him was dedicated in 1891, a lion over his grave, which bears an inscription attesting to his divided life: “In life always brave, fighting like a lion, in death like a lamb, tranquil in Zion.” Bendigo was inducted into Ring magazine’s Boxing Hall of Fame in 1955.
The city of Bendigo is believed to have been named after an admirer of the pugilist who adopted the nickname to advertise his own pretensions as a boxer."
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