page_title: John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry
section_title: Contributions to sports
hierarchical_section_title: John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry / Contributions to sports
caption_attribution_description: Caricature of The Marquis of Queensberry. Caption read "a good light weight".
context_page_description: John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, was a Scottish nobleman, remembered for his atheism, his outspoken views, his brutish manner, for lending his name to the "Queensberry Rules" that form the basis of modern boxing, and for his role in the downfall of the Irish author and playwright Oscar Wilde.
context_section_description: Queensberry was a patron of sport and a noted boxing enthusiast.  In 1866 he was one of the founders of the Amateur Athletic Club, now the Amateur Athletic Association of England, one of the first groups that did not require amateur athletes to belong to the upper-classes to compete.  The following year the Club published a set of twelve rules for conducting boxing matches.  The rules had been drawn up by John Graham Chambers but appeared under Queensberry's sponsorship and are universally known as the "Queensberry Rules". These rules were eventually to govern the sport worldwide.
  A keen rider, Queensberry was also active in fox hunting and owned several successful race horses. As a rider his first winner was in the Dumfriesshire Hunt Club chase in 1865, and his last was at Sandown Park in 1883.  He was Master of the Worcester Fox Hounds in 1870.  He was on the committee of the National Hunt but never won a Grand National as a rider, a last-minute substitution on the victorious "Old Joe" keeping him out of the 1886 National.  During his riding career he recovered from a series of serious injuries.
caption: 1877 caricature of Queensberry in Vanity Fair. Caption reads: "a good light weight".
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