- Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Saturday, 19th June 2010
A passage from E. J. Harrison‘s classic book The Fighting Spirit of Japan, originally published in 1912. This section is taken from a reprint dating to the early 1950s.
Perhaps a pioneer of the Japanese art (of self defence) or a certain version of it was the late Barton-Wright, who studied for some time in Japan, afterwards proceeding to London where he opened an academy and taught what he knew under the name of Bartitsu. He claimed that he had grafted on to the parent stem various shoots of his own invention or culled from other schools in different parts of the world. Without doubt Mr. Barton-Wright was a colourful personality in his day and generation and could give a very good account of himself against all and sundry lacking knowledge of either jujutsu or judo. This splendid veteran passed away only a few years ago, on the threshold of his tenth decade.