John “Jack” Broughton was an English bare-knuckle boxer.

He was the first person to codify a set of boxing rules. On 16 August 1743, he drew up the first standard set of rules for the sport, stipulating that a round would last until a fighter went down with a 30-second interval between rounds. His seven rules were applied widely in boxing for nearly a century until they were replaced by the London Prize Ring rules in 1838.

Prior to this, the “rules” that existed were very loosely defined and tended to vary from contest to contest.

Pierce Egan characterized Broughton as the “Father of the English School of Boxing”.

In 1747, Broughton opened a school in Haymarket where men could learn boxing while wearing an early form of boxing glove called “mufflers” to protect against injury, possibly making the activity more attractive to wealthy customers. Some historians credit Broughton as the inventor of boxing gloves because of his use of mufflers, though their use in professional bouts would not become widespread until the late 19th century.

Broughton was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990 as a pioneer of the sport.