Anna Lewis fights Hattie Stewart – 1884

ANNA Lewis, according to the Police Gazette, said the following: “No woman did more to popularize FEMALE BOXING than Anna Lewis.  It was she who originated the challenge for the first Championship match.  She met Hattie Stewart (question is this Hattie Leslie)  on April 14, 1884.  She lost the fight.  Lewis was a native of Washington D.C.  She fought all comers.  In a photo below they picture her learning how to take solid punches from Billy Russell, her tutor.  Her best fighting weight was 127 lbs.

Other sources/In 1884, Nellie Stewart of Norfolk, Virginia, claimed to have won the first “Female Championship of the World”. The following year the title was claimed by Miss Ann Lewis of Cleveland, Ohio, following an advertisement in the Police Gazette, challenging any woman in the world to fight her for $1,000. The first properly advertised Championship probably took place two years later in 1886. According to the published information, neither of the contestants had ever been beaten in a fight, and together they had accumulated 76 knockouts. On this occasion, Hattie Leslie was battered around the ring, knocked down for a count of eight, had her nose broken and blood drawn and one eye practically closed, but then, miraculously, turned things around and became the first officially recorded “Female World Champion.” [Source Jennifer Hargreaves -Women’s Boxing and Related Activities: Introducing Images and Meanings, dated 2001.]