There he was aboard Admiral Courbet’s flagship, La Galisonier. He was wounded at the Bombardment of Foo Choo at Lan Son, lost half of his right ear and at Kee Sung received a bullet in the right leg and a gash on his right arm. He is the holder of the Tonkin War Medal as a result of this service. Following Admiral Courbet’s death from cholera, the remainder of his men returned to France where Seguy then graduated as master of arms (First class) and Professor of gymnastics and athletics.

He subsequently came to Australia as Captaine d’Armes on the Dupleix in the late 1880’s thriving on competition and challenges to his prowess in the various sports. In Sydney and Melbourne in the 1880’s and 1890’s there was an enormous amount of entertainment.

His first was at Foley’s Hall [Sydney] where fraternity challenges were issued speedily to any or all newcomers. In those times male athletes in Australia dreamt of toppling whoever was regarded as the top. After about fifty challenges, which he won, he tired of competing and winning. Having defeated the Master- at- Arms of the flagship Nelson with singlestick and sword he later defeated Captain St Clementi at Foils for £50 pounds [$100] purse and became champion of the colonies.

Some other challenges, and purses, that he won are:-

• W. Manning. Foil & Singlestick £40 pounds ($80)

• Sgt Donovan. Sword £25 pounds ($50)

• Sgt Meredith. Bayonet & Sword

• Prof Sinion foil, sword & singlestick £50 pounds ($100)

• Capt Jennings (so called champion) £50 pounds ($100)

• Duncan Ross. Foil and singlestick £25 pounds [$50]

After having retired undefeated Professor Seguy’s accomplishments were: ­-

Championships in: -

• Swordsmanship

• Ice skating [France]

• Superb roller skating

• Weight lifting

• Master of La Savate [foot boxing]

He was also an expert club swinger, trapeze artiste, wrestler, singlestick and quarter staff master, master of Jujitsu.

This could alone have warranted a book of his life story; he was such an amazing and versatile man.

He also spoke five languages - press clipping prove the truth of this statement

In descriptive phrases he is called by the presses of the day.

“An incomparable athlete” and “little Hercules” (he had extraordinary strength)   He had surprising strength and dexterity, giving capital exhibitions a superb athlete who was without doubt the most graceful and skilful master of the sword of the time.

He then spent some time with Canard Trouping Caledonia, but before heading to Western Australia he stayed a short time in Adelaide where he met Amelia Wallmann and hearing of the Olde Englishe Fayre fell in with new friends and headed West.

Prof Seguy arrived in Perth in about 1895 and became a member of Ye Olde Englishe Fayre. The grand opening was in 1895 on Saturday, December 14th at 7.30. p.m. Business Manager Ralph Potts Ground Manager G.E. Lawrence, Secretary J. Pearce (Ralph Potts who became a very good life time friend of Seguy for some 49 years, died in 1944 aged 80 years)

Ye Olde Englishe Fayre ran for about 4 months in Perth then went to Fremantle for some time, and those months in Perth are well documented in press clippings and the Fayre was extremely popular. It was a mash of razzle dazzle performers; athletes; performing animal acts and brought the first movies to Perth.

Perth had a most varied and prolific night life and country towns got their share also in those days.

Professor Seguy married Amelia Wallmann and had two daughters Blanche Marie in 1896 and Adelaide Amelia Dorothy (Doris) in 1901

 In 1896 Professor Henry Edward Seguy was appointed to the position of physical instructor for the Y.M.C.A. and was also the instructor at Christian Brothers College. The courses given were Physical Drill, such as Dumbbells, Indian Clubs, Parallel and Horizontal Bars, Roman Rings, etc. as well as Single-stick, and Quarter-staff.

On Saturday night, February 29th 1896 an Assault at Arms of foil vs foil, singlestick vs singlestick took place at the Perth Town Hall, between G. Parker the World Champion and Professor Henry. E. Seguy

Seguy defeated G. Parker in foil G. Parker defeated Seguy in Singlestick so Seguy did not claim the World Title Championship.

On Monday, November 23, 1896 at 8 p.m. at Perth Town Hall under the direction of Professor Henry E. Seguy members of the Y.M.C.A. gymnasium gave a Grand Gymnastic Display and Athletic Demonstration with distinguished patronage present.

About this time Professor Henry E. Seguy opened up his own Gymnasium Club Rooms located at 548 Hay Street Perth. It was open to members every Monday and Wednesday evenings, Saturday afternoon and evenings and all day Sunday.

On Wednesday February 17th 1897 Seguy was in a benefit display at Fremantle Town Hall for a victim of a man attacked with an axe in December 1886

In1928 after about 32 years in Hay Street Perth Professor Henry E Seguy, now in his 70s, closed down his Gymnasium Club Rooms when the depression hit in W. A.

Seguy then rented a flat with 5 rooms at 481 Wellington street Perth adjacent to the Perth railway station. Two of the rooms he used as Club rooms the other three rooms he lived in.

“The Daily News”, Monday September 12, 1932.

At 74 HE CHALLENGES THE WORLD!

SWORDS AND A SEPTUGENARIAN

Story from a Perth Gymnasium

VIVID CAREER OF HENRI SEGUY

(By Gordon Williams)

In a little gymnasium over a shop in Wellington Street, Perth City, a nimble, vivacious man of 74 years of age today claimed definitely the title of champion swordsman of Australia, and then, with an air of rather gracious pugnacity, issued a challenge to anybody who might feel disposed to wrest the honour from him!

The man was Henri Seguy, professor of swordsman-ship Wrestling, single-stick fighting, Ju jitsu, la Savate, club swinging, skating - of everything that tends to make life more vigorous and colourful.

And in his claims to championship there was no suggestion of idle boasting or of the pathetic clamour of a man seeking to convince himself and others that he is just as good as ever he was, Not at all.

 "See!" cried the professor, who, by the way is a son of France, and who has all the Gallic characteristics of temperament and accent. "See!" I take the foil-- I thrust, I parry, and I lunge--touché! I thrust again-----” he did. He thrust and parried for a bewildering five minutes. Then he extended a tattooed arm and indicated the part of his wrist where doctors generally feel before they ask you whether you are still smoking and drinking as much as you used to----

"The pulse!" cried the professor. . "Feel how it beats!" It was beating with the unhurried tick and the calm deliberation of a municipal steam - roller. His singleted chest barely moved under his effortless inspiration. Anybody looking for a cheap title as champion swordsman of Australia is advised that there are no bargains around Henri Eduard Seguy's way. Those 74 years are a delusion and a snare.

A COLOURFUL LIFE

A life of vigour does not seem to have affected him , nor does the variety of his experiences appear to have burned up more than the inevitable quota of his tremendous  energy and since he was a  child incident seems to have crowded into his life his whole career scintillates with the sparkle of adventure. And as he tells his story, he will break off to bring out newspaper clipping, a certificate, a dossier to prove the truth of what he says. He is a factual Frenchman.

From his earliest days we catch the muttering of strife in the siege of Paris by the Prussians, service with the French Navy in the Tonkin wars against the hideous "Black Flags"; then more quietly, a passage to Australia and 57 sword and foil encounters and victories in the Eastern States; a study of English under Peter Jackson and Larry Foley in the Sydney of the 1880s, theatrical tour under Richards ,and friendship with such great artists as Maggie Moore , Marion Hood, Mrs. George Rignold, Letty Linda, Carrie Swain and the tragic Arthur Dacre and Amy Roselle - what a gallery is drawn on his canvas! Then to the flowering West where he accepted engagement at "Ye Olde Englishe Fayre," where Ralph Potts was business manager, G. R. Lawrence ground manager, George A. Jones stage manager, and J. Pearse treasurer and secretary; thereafter a career pioneering motion picture, training the first crew ever to win the Head-of-the-River race, managing skating rinks, boxers cyclists and wrestlers - but why go on with the tally?  If there is any activity which Henry Edward Seguy has missed during his 74 years of crowded life don't tell him the disappointment might kill him.

THE RAT MERCHANT

Did he recall the Siege of Paris? Listen: “We were all living on the Rue De Rivoli I was a kiddy eleven years old. After five months of the siege we were eating bread made of sawdust and maize, and-- other things. We had eaten all the mules and horses in the city and had topped off with the animals from the Paris zoo. So there was little left, but I and some other children hunted through the tremendous sewers of Paris and caught rats, which we sold at 50centimes the rat, and did a great trade. Oh, yes I remember the Siege all right.”

In the circumstances it would not need a particularly good memory to recall it. And then Professor Seguy performed his five years compulsory service in the French Navy:

ALL'S FAIR IN WAR.

“I CAMPAINED AGAINST THE Black Flags--a horrible crew--in Tonkin where I served on the French flagship La Galisonier, under Vice Admiral Courbet.” "This,"--he pointed to an ear from which a tidy slice is missing—“I suffered at Kelung, a place I remember well because one of our officers, Commander Rivera, was ambushed and captured by those Flags, and a stake was driven right through his body, and then he was stuck up like a scarecrow in a rice field. Others of our men were crucified and left for us to see. We saw - and of course, we had to institute reprisals. We used to get the prisoners, tie them to trees by their pigtails-----a terrible punishment for them----and then hoist them up by their queues and shoot them. Cruel? It was terribly---but it was the only way to impress those monsters.”  And the Professor gazed benignly out of a mild blue eye and shrugged his shoulders in that expressive Gallic gesture which says more than a dozen volumes of Zola or Dumas.  “Another time, I saw as a member of an officers' guard the Governor of Kelung, to express his goodwill to the French cause the execution, by beheading of 200 of the Flags. And the job was done by one executioner who averaged one head to a sword stroke. He had a fine technique!”

Then on the completion of his foreign service, young Seguy was sent by the authorities to Jionville-le-Pont, the famous French army and navy school of gymnastics, where first his natural athletic prowess was developed--and, incidentally, he gained the knowledge which enabled him to come to Australia as the captain-at- arms of the Messages Maritimes steamer Yarra.

THOSE WERE THE DAYS!

"In Sydney I met Larry Foley---he was then the proprietor of the White Horse Hotel in George-Street--and he challenged me to a bout of single sticks. I was too quick for the old champion. Turning to Peter Jackson, who was often in the hotel, he said; we must do something for this boy, so as I could not speak English, Peter, who spoke French fluently, did something for me. 

He taught me to swear. That was a preliminary to my learning the language of the country. Then they got me wrestling matches --and I learned all the styles of  wrestling--Lancashire, catch-as-catch-can, collar and elbow”, and the men who strutted their colourful way in and out of Seguy's life in those day's : Mick Dooley, the heavyweight champion, Jack Molloy, the middleweight star George Dawson, supreme among the lightweights, "Young" Griffo and later, Bill Doherty. What a race of giants! The professor's stories of them all would fill a sizeable volume. And Seguy had his tale of triumph in all this panoply of power and pugilism and perhaps his greatest individual success was when he defeated Captain E. N. Jennings the American master swordsman for the championship title of both America and Australia.

PROF. HENRI. E. SEGUY

 “I got £400 out of that encounter." Said the professor, dreamily reminiscent, "and Peter Jackson helped me to spend it ----that was about 18 months before the gentleman went to America. And what a time we had! We went to-----"But let that pass. I was assured that the professor and Peter really did have a good time.

Two years in Melbourne sufficed for the professor. He came to the West for a six-month venture in vaudeville and remained 36 years.

CHANGING SCENES

So the vivid kaleidoscopic life that seems always fated to have been his goes on. Now we glimpse him managing the Town Hall picture---Oh shades of Max Linder. Tontolini and Maurice Costello!  Now he is a humble ticket taker; now a less humble “chucker out.” Now he is travelling with a couple of brumbies and biography machine from Hay-street East to Peak Hill with Bill Martin (giant among cyclists) as a pacer and Martin rides alongside the professor on his machine training for the Austral, a cycle-racing classic which he subsequently won .Now the professor is giving exhibitions on the roller skates and training skating teams. Now we find him---34 years or so ago--- training the pupils of Christian Brothers College in gymnastics and athletics; now wrestling with a burglar who was five stone heavier than the professor, and whose lethal capabilities later earned him imprisonment for life and thereby hangs a tale

Mr. S. Roe. P. M. commended Seguy highly for his bravery--it is in the newspaper of the day--- and Inspector Farley promised a monetary reward. The reward was never forthcoming---the inspector died in the middle of the negotiations, but the promise is still as good as new. Does the professor care? Not a shrug of the shoulders!

THE GRATEFUL PARENT

And now we see him rescuing a boy from the Swan, another exploit which earned him the commendation of contemporaries, and highly eulogistic notices in the press - but what happened to Seguy?   While he stood dripping on the bank exhausted and shivering, the father of the rescued boy asked him in view of the fact that he was already wet, to jump back in and bring out the lads cap that made the professor wetter still. He gets wet even now when he recalls it.  And it is all recorded in the newspapers, every last phase of the incident---if there is a narrative better documented than the Professor's, it must be supported by the archives of the British Museum. That is but a part of the life story of this remarkable man. Once he took to the bush, intent on becoming a pioneer; but the sport was too tame. He returned to Melbourne to manage a skating rink at South Yarra.  South Yarra was quite capable of providing even him with all the excitement he desired. Still our available canvas is full, and the tale is only half told

THE HAPPY WARRIOR

It is 20 years since Professor Seguy gave up competitive athletics, retiring with the title of “recognised light-weight undefeated champion of the World,” in point of all -round supremacy, but he is still eager and willing to joust it with the ambitious swordsmen of the day, and he is still ready to impart his vast store of athletic knowledge to the earnest seeker. He is still eager to teach the young ideas how to spar and engage in fisticuffs generally with-out incurring a very considerable measure of risk in the process; still willing to talk of his overcrowded life to those who delight in the days of the giants.  So there we leave him---74 years of age and hurling down a challenge.

Sept 4th 1945 Daily News Paper