Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, ‘Wreford Obituary’ (7 Dec 1866)
DEATH OF A RENOWNED DEVONSHIRE WRESTLER.
On Sunday last the veteran William Wreford died after a very short illness at the house of one of his children, in the metropolis [London].
Mr. Wreford bore a name familiar to all the lovers of wrestling, both in the provinces and the metropolis. Indeed, there is probably none who appeared before the public so frequently and for such a long period as he did, for though by profession he was, like his ancestors, a farmer, yet he passionately loved the most ancient of all pastimes, and for a period of nearly thirty years generally contrived to be present at all the great wrestling matches in Devonshire, and almost invariably maintained the high reputation which he gained before he was twenty years of age.
Mr. Wreford was born at Morchard Bishop, near Crediton, the inhabitants of which have been from time immemorial noted for their great stature and strength. Indeed, the father of Abraham Cann, the champion wrestler, was a native of Morchard Bishop, and according to the testimony of the ancients was in many respects a superior wrestler to his renowned son.
At 18 years of age Mr. Wreford attended a great wrestling match at Crediton, and at its close stood high in the prize list; this was in 1811. The next year his name became a household word throughout the whole county, for having again attended at Crediton, nearly at the close of the play he found himself pitted against the terrible Jordan, a man of gigantic stature and strength, and who—according to one author—was so feared in the Plymouth wrestling ring that the committee at last excluded him in their arrangements from contending for the prizes offered by them; but at Crediton Jordan was destined to play the part of Goliath, for after twenty minutes contention, Mr. Wreford succeeded in throwing his huge adversary such a tremendous back fall that the crash occasioned thereby was almost similar to that produced by the falling of an oak tree, and young Wreford amid the deafening applause of an immense concourse of all classes was triumphantly carried on the shoulders of several stalwart men to the Ship Hotel, in Crediton, there to receive from the committee something more weighty, if not more warrant, than that which the Grecian heroes of old were crowned.
In 1815 Mr. Wreford visited the metropolis and contended with the champion Foareres, whom he threw. Soon after he and the celebrated Thomas Baker threw the best of the Cornish wrestlers at Plymouth, with one or two others of their party, bore off very heavy prizes. In 1825 the writer was personally witness to a great gathering of Devon wrestlers at Crediton, when there was a vast assemblage of gentry and yeomen, who betted freely on their favourites. At this memorable match Mr. Wreford had to contend with the renowned James Stone (who on account of his prodigious strength and activity was nicknamed by one of our London papers “The Little Elephant”), and a terrible encounter ensued, for the men grappled with each other in such a way as almost to realize Homer’s description of the struggle between Ajax and Hector. In truth the first shock resembled the clash of two fierce bulls. At first Mr. Wreford appeared to have the advantage, but before ten minutes had elapsed he was literally hurled into the air and fell with terrible violence on his back; yet he was quickly on his legs again, declaring that he would seize the first opportunity of recovering his lost laurels. Not long after he and Mr. Stone met at Southampton, when for the first half hour they contended with varying success, after which it was apparent that the strength of the “Little Elephant” was the most enduring, and at the end of seventy minutes, Mr. Wreford having been much shaken by repeated falls on his side, was reluctantly compelled to give up the contest, though his opponent paid his usual magnanimity offered to forego claiming the prize until the next day, thinking that his friend’s indomitable pluck and well-known elasticity of body might possibly then enable him to renew the struggle. That this was no fanciful picture, the fact of Mr. Wreford throwing, six or seven years afterwards, the celebrated Cornish wrestler Francis Oliver, though several of his ribs were broken before he took his opponent by the collar is, we think, conclusive evidence.
Until the last few months Mr. Wreford had been residing at Tiverton; and when we saw him in January last he was as erect as a bean-stalk, and in every respect appeared twenty years younger than he really was. He then gave us an extraordinary proof of the retentiveness of his memory, for testing his many statements by the records of the Crediton Old Wrestling Club, we invariably found them correct.
Mr. Wreford was a well-informed, genial-hearted old man, full of anecdotes of celebrated wrestlers and of scenes of the old sporting days, and he and Mr. Robert Stone, brother of Mr. James Stone, and himself a renowned wrestler, quite laughed at the general idea of the “dangers of the wrestling ring,” and well vindicated the practice of wrestling, which had been handed down in rural districts from father to son for many hundred years, and both, to the writer’s great amusement, declared their legs were without a blemish, though they must have received thousands of severe kicks.
—Morning News.