Born in Somerset, Gully became a pugilist and was trained to fight the All-England champion Henry Pearce, the celebrated 'Game Chicken' before an audience including the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV). He was beaten after a tremendous 64-round battle lasting an hour and 17 minutes. Pearce retired soon afterwards and Gully became champion, beating the 'Lancashire Giant' twice in successive years. The second contest was fought in white breeches and silk stockings, but without shoes, before an audience of a hundred noblemen and Corinthians in Sir John Sebright's park in Hertfordshire.
Gully retired from boxing and took up racing. He lost sums of £40,000 and £85,000 but recovered to win the Derby three times, as well as the Oaks and the Two Thousand Guineas. He also became MP for Pontefract. Gully invested his winnings in Hetton, Thornley and Trimdon collieries and took up residence in Cocken Hall. He married twice and had twelve children by each wife. He also had a house in the Bailey in Durham, where he died in his eightieth year.
Gully makes a striking appearance in George Macdonald Fraser's novel Royal Flash, one of the famous Flashman series. In the 1975 film version, Henry Cooper played Gully.
Other noted boxers associated with the North East include Bombardier Billy Wells, a visitor to Sir Anthony Eden's family at Windlestone Hall. He was famous as the second 'gong man' in the J Arthur Rank films, though the gong sound was actually made by a small cymbal.
Tommy Burns, the Canadian (1881-1955), though only 5'7" tall, won the world heavyweight championship in February 1906. He lost the title to the great Jack Johnson, but made an astonishing comeback in 1920 to go seven game rounds against Joe Beckett. He married a local actress, Dorothea Hall, whom he had met while giving an exhibition at St James hall, Newcastle and from 1922-27 he managed the Forth Hotel on Pink Street in Newcastle, where there was a ring on the first floor for illegal bare-knuckle fisticuffs,