James "Jem" Mace (8 April 1831 – 30 November 1910) was an English boxing champion, primarily during the bare-knuckle era. He was born at Beeston, Norfolk. Although nicknamed "The Gypsy", he denied Romani ethnicity in his autobiography. Fighting in England, at the height of his career between 1860 and 1866, he won the English Welterweight, Heavyweight, and Middleweight Championships and was considered one of the most scientific boxers of the era. Most impressively, he held the World Heavyweight Championship from 1870 to 1871 while fighting in the United States. Boxing career Mace was born the fifth of eight children to blacksmith William and his wife Ann Rudd Mace on 8 April 1831, in the remote village of Beeston, in rural Norfolk, England. In the early 1850s, during his days as an exhibition boxer at Nat Langham's Rum Pum-pas boxing club at Cambrian Stores near what is now London's Charing Cross Road, Mace once boxed Archibald William Douglas (1818-1856), the 8th Marquess of Queensberry, known as Viscount Drumlanrig. Douglas had served as a former member of the House of Commons and was the father of John Douglas, credited with helping to establish boxing's modern Marquess of Queensberry Rules. During the same period and earlier, Mace completed what might be considered an apprenticeship in the boxing booth of former English middleweight champion Nat Langham, where he fought many talented amateurs, and a few men with the skills of professionals, touring and often performing at county fairs. He would continue to supplement his income by performing exhibitions and giving sparring and training sessions for Langham's boxing club in London's Westminster through the early 1860s. During his early work at county fairs, he was even known to play his violin to perform for the audience when he wasn't boxing amateurs and volunteers. In one of his early bouts, at the age of 24, Mace defeated Bob Slack decisively on 2 October 1855 in Mildenhall, northeast of Cambridge, winning in nine rounds and only fourteen minutes. On 17 February 1857, Mace defeated Bill Thorpe, an opponent close to his own height and weight, near Canvey Island, North of Kent, off the Thames Estuary in Essex, although the original location was the North Kentish marshes. Mace dominated the fighting and in the eighteenth round delivered a stinging left and right to Thorpe's nose, with the right causing a knockdown. Thorpe could not rise or continue the