Abraham Cann

“Champion of All England”

I. Life and Career

Abraham Cann was the undisputed champion of Devon wrestling and, by wide contemporary consensus, the greatest wrestler in England during the 1820s. His career defined the sport’s golden age, his matches drew the largest crowds ever recorded for wrestling in the West of England, and his name remained a byword for Devonshire strength and sportsmanship for generations after his death. No other figure in the history of Devonshire wrestling approaches his significance.

Abraham was baptised at Colebrooke, near Crediton, on 2 December 1794, the youngest of seven children born to Robert Cann, a farmer and maltster, and his wife Mary (Wikipedia, “Abraham Cann”; colebrooke.org). He was born at Snells Farm (colebrooke.org) or Eastcombe Head Farm (Wikipedia). His father Robert was himself a wrestler — reputed by the testimony of the local elders to have been in many respects a superior wrestler to his renowned son (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 7 December 1866). Something in the air, the soil, and the culture of Crediton and its surrounding parishes seems to have been ideal for the generation of Devonshire wrestlers: John Helyer had been described as a wrestler on his burial in Crediton churchyard in 1710, and “Blind Wreford” (1747–1835) had also acquired a reputation in the ring (heardfamilyhistory.org.uk). Abraham inherited from his father a love of play, and all four of his elder brothers — George, Robert, James, and William — were also wrestlers, though none acquired the celebrity of Abraham (Baring-Gould, Devonshire Characters and Strange Events, Wikisource; Wikipedia).

Cann stood 5 ft 8½ in. and weighed approximately 12 st. 7 lb. (variously reported as 8 score 15 lb.) — above the middle height for the period, with long legs and surprising strength of limb (Porter, 1989; Baring-Gould, Wikisource). He was, above all, a kicker: he wore boots whose toes had been soaked in bullock’s blood and baked as hard as flint, and his kicks landed with a force repeatedly compared by contemporaries to the blows of a sledgehammer (Porter, 1989; Baring-Gould, Wikisource; Egan, 1836). His grip, like that of his great rival Polkinghorne, was legendary: no man had ever shaken it off once he had clinched (Baring-Gould, Wikisource). He also gave his name to a particular grip known as “Abraham Cann’s staylace,” immortalised in R. D. Blackmore’s novel Clara Vaughan (heardfamilyhistory.org.uk).

By his early twenties, Cann had risen to pre-eminence. He defeated Jordan, Flower, Wreford, Simon Webber, and the other good wrestlers of Devonshire, carrying off the prizes at all the places where he became a competitor (Wikipedia; Baring-Gould, Wikisource). At the great Okehampton match of 1824, Cann took the first prize after a bout against Woolaway that lasted an extraordinary one hour and fifty-six minutes before 6,000–7,000 spectators (Porter, 1989, p. 199). At Crediton in July 1825, he threw his own brother James to take the first prize (Exeter Flying Post; Porter, 1989). In 1820, Abraham married Mary Gorwyn, the daughter of local farmer Joseph Gorwyn (colebrooke.org; Wikipedia).

Cann’s relationship with Jordan — Devon’s other giant of the 1820s — was the defining rivalry of the age. Jordan had thrown Cann on more than one occasion, and Cann had in turn thrown Jordan (Egan, 1836). At Totnes in 1825, Cann awaited Jordan in the ring with a smile of conscious superiority, and Jordan withdrew without trying for a hitch (Baring-Gould, Wikisource). In 1828, articles were signed for a formal challenge match at the Eagle Tavern for £100 aside — whether this match was ever contested remains unknown (Western Times, 3 May 1828).

In 1824, Cann became proprietor of The Moreton Inn in St Thomas, Exeter — a hub for wrestling enthusiasts (colebrooke.org). By 1828–1829 he managed The Woolpack Inn in Bartholomew Yard, Exeter, which he renamed The Champion’s Arms, reflecting his celebrated status. In 2022, Exeter Civic Society unveiled a plaque on the site of this pub in Bartholomew Street (heardfamilyhistory.org.uk).

The metropolitan London matches of 1826–1828 extended Cann’s fame to a national audience. At the Eagle Tavern on 21 September 1826, he took the first prize of ten sovereigns, defeating James Warren of Redruth despite wrestling without shoes — a considerable disadvantage for a Devon kicker (Exeter Flying Post, 28 September 1826; Porter, 1989). He challenged the world to wrestle him for £50 or £100, appearing at Belcher’s Castle in Holborn (Exeter Flying Post; project archive material). At Vauxhall Gardens, he and Stone appeared fashionably dressed, exciting considerable curiosity (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 16 June 1827).

The Cann–Polkinghorne encounter at Tamar Green, Morice Town, Devonport, on 23 October 1826, was the single most famous event in the history of Westcountry wrestling. James Polkinghorne stood 6 ft 2 in. and weighed approximately 320 lb.; Cann was three stone lighter. The match was for £200 a side, the best of three back falls, before an estimated 17,000 spectators. The West was alive with speculation; hotels and inns were booked out, and visitors poured in from across Devon and Cornwall. Cann wore one shoe (or, by some accounts, a monstrous pair whose toes had been baked into flints) while Polkinghorne wrestled in stockings. The Cornishmen displayed their disapprobation of the Devon kick by clamour and hissing. In the midst of the bouts, Cann’s kicks worked with the regularity of a pendulum, telling with terrible effect upon his adversary’s legs. The final result was disputed — Cann received the stakes, since Polkinghorne had quit the ring believing he had won — and the match has remained a matter of controversy ever since (Porter, 1989; Baring-Gould, Wikisource; Egan, 1836; Exeter Flying Post, 19 October 1826; Wikipedia). A commemorative plaque was placed on the Red Lion pub in St Columb Major for the centenary in 1926 (Western Morning News, 7 August 1926).

At Tavistock in May 1827 — the greatest match ever witnessed in either county — Cann took the first prize of fifteen sovereigns. The arrangements stipulated that no shoe should be used except those approved by the triers (Porter, 1989). At the Grand Wrestling Match at Leeds in Easter 1828, Cann won the first prize of £30 after an epic final against James Stone lasting over an hour (Egan, 1836).

Cann’s personal life was marked by devastating losses. His two-year-old son George died in 1829; another son, William, died aged three months the same year; and in September 1830, at thirty years of age, his wife Mary died. These tragedies laid Cann low in a way that his wrestling opponents never could. He gave up The Champion’s Arms and by some accounts took to drink. In 1831 the local press described him as reduced to poverty by illness and family affliction (heardfamilyhistory.org.uk; colebrooke.org). His well-wishers secured him a position as toll-keeper on the Stonehouse Bridge. He later returned to his brother’s farm at East Coombehead, Colebrooke.

Cann continued to wrestle occasionally through the 1830s and remained unbeaten. On 27 July 1841, his last formal match was held in a specially constructed ring near St Thomas Church, Exeter, for a prize of 100 sovereigns. Cann was forty-seven. After forty-eight minutes, he sustained a broken collar-bone — an old injury exacerbated at Hittisleigh two months earlier — and retired, assuring his young opponent that he had been as good or as fair a man as he had ever played with (heardfamilyhistory.org.uk; colebrooke.org).

In his later years Cann appeared as a trier and celebrity at fairs throughout Devon. In 1860, an annuity was raised for him through subscription; Lord Palmerston headed the effort, and £200 was presented (Wikipedia; Porter, 1989). Tom Sayers, the celebrated bare-knuckle boxer, personally donated the first five-pound note, saying that Cann deserved recognition before himself (Western Morning News, 19 August 1926). Abraham Cann died on 7 April 1864 and was buried at Colebrooke churchyard (Wikipedia). In 1880, a Mr James Wreford replaced his tombstone with a new memorial standing by the west door of Colebrooke parish church (heardfamilyhistory.org.uk).

II. Match record

III. Summary statistics

IV. Key observations

• 1. The undisputed champion. Cann’s supremacy rests on the most comprehensive record of any Devon wrestler: he defeated every significant opponent of his generation, won the first prize at every major tournament for which detailed results survive, and remained unbeaten across a career spanning nearly three decades. No other wrestler in the archive approached this consistency.
• 2. The Polkinghorne match was a cultural event of national significance. The 17,000-strong crowd at Tamar Green in 1826 was the largest ever recorded for a wrestling match in England. The event transcended sport: it was a contest between counties, between wrestling styles (Devon’s kick versus Cornwall’s hug), and between regional identities. Its permanent irresolution — both sides claiming victory — ensured it remained in living memory for a century, commemorated at St Columb in 1926.
• 3. The kicker as artist. Cann’s kicking was not mere brutality. Porter records that his kicks landed “with the force of a sledge” and “with the regularity of a pendulum” — language that conveys controlled, rhythmic technique rather than wild aggression. His ability to defeat Warren without shoes, and to prevail at Tavistock under restricted shoe rules, demonstrates that his wrestling comprised far more than kicking alone.
• 4. Personal tragedy shadowed the career. The deaths of two infant sons and his wife Mary within two years (1829–1830) broke Cann in ways that no opponent could. His descent into poverty, his drift from innkeeping to toll-collecting, and his final years in receipt of parish relief and public subscription represent one of the most melancholy trajectories in nineteenth-century sporting biography. Tom Sayers’s generous tribute — donating the first five-pound note to Cann’s annuity — underscores the respect in which Cann was still held even by the champions of other sports.
• 5. The final match exemplified Cann’s sportsmanship. At forty-seven, with a pre-existing collar-bone injury, Cann competed for a prize of 100 sovereigns against a man twenty-three years his junior and thirty pounds heavier. When the injury forced his retirement, his words to his opponent — that he was as good or as fair a man as Cann had ever played with — encapsulate the generous spirit that made Cann beloved as well as feared.
• 6. Cann’s legacy defined the sport’s memory. Every subsequent Devon wrestler was measured against Cann. “Argus” explicitly framed Cooper’s career as “the link between the time of Abram Cann and the present.” Rundle’s claim to the championship was validated by “Argus” through comparison to Cann’s standards. Even in 1926, the Western Morning News published lengthy reminiscences of Cann as the touchstone of Devon’s sporting identity.

V. Methodological caveats

Cann’s biography is paradoxically both the best documented and the most mythologised of any Devon wrestler. The primary sources — Egan (1836), the Exeter Flying Post, Bell’s Life in London, the Western Times, and Baring-Gould’s Devonshire Characters and Strange Events — provide extensive coverage of the 1824–1828 period but far less detail on his early career (c. 1812–1823) and his later career (1830s–1841). The local heritage sources (colebrooke.org, heardfamilyhistory.org.uk) provide valuable genealogical and biographical data but are secondary compilations that do not always cite their primary evidence. The claim that Cann was “never defeated” rests on the absence of documented losses rather than on positive evidence of universal victory; Egan records that Jordan threw Cann “more than once,” but no surviving source provides details of a specific documented defeat before 1841. The Polkinghorne match result remains genuinely unresolvable from the available evidence. The fifteen entries in the match table represent the recoverable documentation and should be understood as a fraction of a career spanning nearly thirty years across dozens of Devon, Cornwall, and London venues.

VI. References

1. Baring-Gould, S. (1908). Devonshire wrestlers. In Devonshire Characters and Strange Events. Bodley Head. Reproduced on Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Devonshire_Characters_and_Strange_Events/Devonshire_Wrestlers
2. Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 20 May 1827; 27 April 1828.
3. Colebrooke village history. (2024). Abraham Cann: The Legendary Champion of Devon Wrestling. colebrooke.org. https://www.colebrooke.org/personalities/abrahamcann/
4. Egan, P. (1836). Pierce Egan’s Book of Sports, and Mirror of Life. T. Tegg. Pp. 321–336.
5. Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 16 June 1827; 7 December 1866.
6. Exeter Flying Post, 5 June 1817; 17 August 1815; 12 August 1824; 22 September 1825; 28 September 1826; 19 October 1826; 7 June 1827.
7. Heard Family History. (n.d.). Abraham Cann. https://www.heardfamilyhistory.org.uk/Abraham%20Cann.html
8. Porter, J. H. (1989). The decline of the Devonshire wrestling style. Transactions and Reports of the Devonshire Association, 121, 195–213.
9. Tripp, M. (2009). Persistence of Difference: A History of Cornish Wrestling, Vols 1 & 2. PhD thesis, University of Exeter.
10. Western Morning News, 7 August 1926; 19 August 1926.
11. Western Times, 3 May 1828; 11 November 1904.
12. Wikipedia. (2024). Abraham Cann. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Cann
13. “Argus.” (1879, 31 January). Devon wrestling, No. III. Western Times.
14. Project archive material (Devonshire Wrestling Society archive): match reports, challenge letters, retrospective accounts.