page_title: Alfred Hutton
section_title: Influence upon stage fencing
hierarchical_section_title: Alfred Hutton / Influence upon stage fencing
caption_attribution_description: Esmé Beringer, Victorian actress and fencer
context_page_description: Alfred Hutton FSA was a Victorian officer of the King's Dragoon Guards, writer, antiquarian and swordsman. He originated the first English revival of historical fencing, together with his colleagues Egerton Castle, Captain Carl Thimm, Colonel Cyril Matthey, Captain Percy Rolt, Captain Ernest George Stenson Cooke, Captain Frank Herbert Whittow, Sir Frederick and Walter Herries Pollock.
context_section_description: Hutton successfully introduced realistic, historically accurate swordplay into the contemporary theatrical repertoire. In Old Sword Play (1892) he wrote: 
  There are those who affect to ridicule the study of obsolete weapons, alleging that it is of no practical use; everything, however, is useful to the Art of Fence which tends to create an interest in it, and certain it is that such contests as Rapier and Dagger, Two hand Sword, or Broadsword and Handbuckler, are a very great embellishment to the somewhat monotonous proceedings of the ordinary assault of arms.
  The Combinations will be found extremely useful as forms of "set play" for combats on the dramatic stage.
  Circa 1899–1902, Hutton taught stage fencing classes for actors via the Bartitsu Club, where he also served on the Board of Directors and learned the basics of jujutsu and the Vigny method of stick fighting from his fellow instructors.
  Alfred Hutton arranged combats for numerous London plays, including:
  Romeo and Juliet at the Court Theatre, performed 17 March 1904 – 5 March 1904
  The Comedy of Errors, performed 17 December 1904 (4 performances)
  Romeo and Juliet at the Lyceum, performed 14 March 1908 – 30 May 1908
caption: Actress and stage fencer Esmé Beringer, a student of Hutton's.
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