Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, William Wreford obituary (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. Mr. Wreford bore a name familiar to all the lovers of wrestling, both in the provinces and the metropolis. Born at Morchard Bishop, near Crediton, at 18 years of age he attended a great wrestling match at Crediton, and at its close stood high in the prize list. The next year his name became a household word throughout the whole county, for having thrown Jordan—”a man of gigantic stature and strength”—at Crediton, after twenty minutes contention, “such a tremendous back fall that the crash occasioned thereby was almost similar to that produced by the falling of an oak tree.”

In 1825 at Crediton, Mr. Wreford had to contend with the renowned James Stone (nicknamed by one of our London papers “The Little Elephant”). 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.

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.—Morning News.