Advertisements from the Western Flying Post; or, Sherborne & Yeovil Mercury and General Advertiser, 2 June 1783. CORNWALL THIS is to give notice, that at the house of Mr. William Fry, the Rose and Crown, in Millbrook, near Plymouth, on the ninth day of June next, being Whitsun Monday, will be WRESTLED for, A Gold […]
WRESTLING IN DEVON AND CORNWALL. Richard Polwhele’s Historical Views of Devonshire (1793) constitutes the first modern county history of Devon and provides the earliest sustained account of popular recreations—including wrestling—in the region at the close of the eighteenth century, predating all newspaper sources in the archive by approximately a decade. Polwhele observes that wrestling was […]
The sports at Morice-Town Fair, Plymouth-Dock, last week, afforded much amusement. On Thursday the wrestling matches began, in which 22 standards, comprising the best players in Devon and Cornwall, among others the two Jordans, Jackman, Polkinghorne, Flower, Cann, Cowling, Webber, &c. &c. maintained the character of their respective counties with matchless strength and dexterity. The […]
WRESTLING.—MOYLE AND HEAD.—Moyle the Cornwall man, wrestled his match with Head, the Devonshire man, on Thursday evening, at the Eagle Tavern, City-road. They both played Devonshire fashion, and for that purpose were padded. Moyle was the favourite at starting, and justified the confidence of his friends. The match was to be decided by the first […]
HONE’s TABLE BOOK Hone, W (1827); The table book: or, Daily recreation and information concerning remarkable men, manners, times, seasons, solemnities, merry-makings, antiquities and novelties, forming a complete history of the year, W. Tegg. DEVONSHIRE WRESTLING. For the Table Book. Abraham Cann, the Devonshire champion, and his brother wrestlers of that county, are objected to […]
A Correspondent has favored us with the following List of the Ages, Height, and Weight, of some of the principal Wrestlers at the above match: DEVON: Abraham Cann, Age 32, Height 5ft 8½in, Weight 175lbs. William Wollaway, 28, 6ft 0in, 210lbs. James Stone, 28, 5ft 4in, 173lbs. John Jordon, 39, 6ft 4in, 230lbs. William Wreford, […]
TO THE EDITOR OF THE LEEDS INTELLIGENCER. SIR,—A Correspondent in your last states, that, at the approaching Grand Wrestling Match, at Leeds, it is understood by the Cornishmen, that the players are to be confined to the hold by the collar, and that no other hold will be allowed. This is not the case. The […]
TO THE EDITOR OF THE LEEDS INTELLIGENCER. SIR,—As far as the prizes and offer to pay the expenses of the wrestlers go, I cannot sufficiently admire the liberality of the promoters of the approaching wrestling at Leeds; but there is a condition of play, which will I think destroy all chance of deciding in a […]
GREAT WRESTLING MATCH, AT HYDE PARK CRICKET GROUND. ON MONDAY next and Two following Days, a GREAT WRESTLING MATCH will take place between the Men of Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Cumberland, and the surrounding Counties, and a number of picked Wrestlers from London, Devonshire, Cornwall, and Ireland. On commencing, the Men are first to […]
Early in the month of October, 1828, a wrestling-match took place at the grounds of the Eagle Tavern in the City Road, between Olver and Finney, the former a noted wrestler from Cornwall, who has floored all who opposed him since his arrival in London, and the latter an Irishman. Finney accidentally, but fairly, threw […]
In February, 1829, a Wrestling Match between OLVER and SAUNDERS, both Cornishmen, at the Eagle Tavern, in the City Road, which excited considerable interest amongst the supporters of the above Old English Sport. Olver and Saunders entered the ring, to contend for the first two fair back falls out of three, for thirty sovereigns. It […]
Howitt, W (1838); The rural life of England, Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans. WE must not close this department of our subject, without saying a word or two on wrestling. This exercise, which at one time was almost universal, is now, like many others, fallen into general disuse; and is confined almost entirely to […]
THE COMMITTEE of the CORNWALL and DEVONSHIRE WRESTLING SOCIETY beg to announce that they will celebrate their usual ANNUAL SPORT in the Pleasure Garden attached to Mr Baum’s, the White Lion, Victoria Park Station, Hackney Wick, on Whit-Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, when a number of handsome money prizes will be given to be wrestled for […]
WRESTLING. Those who see wrestlers on a London arena of sawdust, whether they represent France against England or Cumberland against Westmoreland, gain thereby a very imperfect idea of this famous athletic sport. It is a country game. It belongs aright to wild regions where the turf is virgin, and the wrestler, like Antaeus in the […]
XXXIX It is to be regretted that the old Cornish games are gradually losing their hold and are dying out in the country. The wrestling matches which formerly were well attended and patronized by the local gentry are now with few exceptions got up by the publicans as means of selling liquor, and in place […]
Deadman’s Alley, pp. 11. Plain John Garnet looked somewhat preoccupied now, sitting moodily over his punch, and the influence of his demeanour seemed to steal upon the company in general. Mr. Gale, indeed, held forth loudly on horse-racing, cock-fighting, and such congenial topics, but spent his breath for an inattentive audience, not to be interested […]
WRESTLING — CHAMPIONSHIP PLAY AT NEWTON ABBOT. Notwithstanding the fact that several wrestlers lay claim to the title of champion of Devon and Cornwall, not one can do so fairly, nor can any man even claim to be champion of either county. The retirement of Robert Baker, after his match with Pike some eight years […]
Robert James Fitzsimmons was born in Helston, Cornwall, in 1863, the son of a policeman who had settled in Cornwall. He became the first boxer in history to hold world championship titles in three weight divisions — middleweight, heavyweight, and light heavyweight. His self-defence manual, published in 1901 at the height of his international fame, […]
Mr. Quiller Couch, the well-known litterateur, attended a wrestling tournament in Cornwall, his native county, the other day, and distributed the prizes. He expressed gratification that the sport was not dead, and that there were still left wrestlers capable of teaching the art in a manner not unworthy of the county. Not many years ago […]
Baring-Gould, S. (1908). Devonshire characters and strange events. John Lane, The Bodley Head. DEVONSHIRE WRESTLERS. WRESTLING was the favourite sport in former days in Devonshire and Cornwall. Evelyn, in his Diary, speaks of Westcountrymen in London contesting against men of the North, and in all cases the former were the victors. And Ben Jonson, in […]
“West-country Wrestlers” — subject dealt with by Percy Longhurst in a current publication. He says it is 300 years since one old writer declared there was not a 12-year-old boy in Cornwall who could not give a stranger, curious of the style of wrestling, a fall or, at foil. But the game still goes on […]
A video dated to 1925, covering Cornish wrestling championships at Ludgvan. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. (1925). Cornish wrestling championships at Ludgvan. Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/4ac050f0-c61a-012f-d026-58d385a7bc34
WRESTLING. CORNISH SPORT RE-ESTABLISHED. CENTENARY TOURNEY. What a very marked contrast there is in the attendances at the wrestling tournaments which have been held this year, and, above all, what great advancement in the standard of play and the evenness of the bouts, all this having been brought about undoubtedly by the influence of the […]
The centenary of the celebrated Polkinghorne and Cann match, which was held at Devonport in 1826, will occupy the attention of the General Committee when they meet at Wadebridge on June 27. Various opinions as to where this should be held are causing quite a controversy, some suggesting Home Park, Plymouth, and some a central […]
Farm labourers and clay workers fight in Cornwall county wrestling championships. Newquay. Available online via British Pathé. Film ID: 416.01 Archive: British Pathé Group: PATHE NEWSREELS / PATHE GAZETTES Issue Date: 06/08/1925 Colour: Black & White Sound: Silent
CORNISH WRESTLING. BENEVOLENT FUND FOR COMPETITORS WHO ARE INJURED. Begging the ring at wrestling tournaments has been a custom that has always been looked upon as objectionable and lowering to the dignity of those taking part. To overcome this, it has been decided that something shall be done to make provision for those injured, and […]
Men wrestle in the park in Cambourne (sic). Item title reads: “Cornwall County Wrestling Championships. Crowds from all over the country – see grim and dour struggles in the “Cornish style”.” Available online via British Pathé. Film ID: 694.20 Archive: British Pathé Group: PATHE NEWSREELS / PATHE GAZETTES Issue Date: 18/08/1927 Colour: Black & White […]
WRESTLING RECORD. INTEREST IN THE GAME SPREADS. A YEAR’S GOOD WORK. Mr. F. J. Jago, secretary of the Cornwall Wrestling Association, at a meeting of the Management Committee at Truro on Monday, stated that a very gratifying feature of the season had been the number of ladies who had witnessed the various tournaments. This tended […]
CORNISH AND DEVON WRESTLING. To the Editor of the Western Times. Sir,—The enclosed card—”St. Thomas Grand Wrestling Match, Grand Stand: Admission sixpence”—I found amongst some old papers. It may be of interest, especially now when we hear of women engaging in the sport. About forty years ago I was engaged superintending the erection of a […]
Despite the title of the book, Stanley Bacon was a practitioner of a range of styles, including Cornish Wrestling. In his work he covers a few techniques common in the Westcountry, although in his example, applied without jackets. The main Westcountry technique Bacon described was the Fore Crook, or Fore Lock (pp.54-55). CORNISH LOCK FORWARD […]
The Devonshire Wrestling Society archive has been assembled over more than twelve years of systematic research into the history of Westcountry martial arts. When this work began, the documentary record was sparse and dispersed: sources were few, descriptions were thin, and access required navigating institutional barriers that most researchers would not have the time or resources to overcome. The archive now comprises 421 records — 322 newspaper articles (1778–1947), 35 manuscripts, 11 posters, 48 books, one letters patent, two cemetery inscriptions, and two memorials — spanning approximately one thousand years of history across five defined periods and three core disciplines: wrestling, cudgelling, and pugilism.
The material has been drawn from archives, museums, and libraries at both local and national level, as well as from diaspora communities. Access varied considerably: some holdings were straightforwardly available through public or gated online repositories; others required direct institutional inquiry, formal licensing, or payment. Licence fees for individual items have, in some cases, reached several hundred pounds. Items acquired under licence are retained for private research purposes only and are not published. A small number of items from private collections likewise remain unpublished, pending permission. All records for which publication rights have been secured are made freely and openly available.
The cost of the archive — in time and in money — has been substantial. It is offered without charge because the traditions it documents belong to the communities that produced them, and because those who come after should not be required to repeat the effort already expended.
Every record in the archive was acquired through a consistent five-stage process:
Identification. Awareness of potential sources was established through systematic searches of public and private institutional indexes worldwide, and through direct correspondence with subject specialists already engaged with relevant holdings.
Access. Depending on the institution, access was obtained through online repositories, direct application, or formal licensing. Correspondence was initiated with several hundred institutions over the course of the project. Where institutions confirmed the absence of relevant holdings, this was recorded. Where access was granted, the means of access was documented.
Storage. All acquired material is held in a single centralised repository, ensuring that research access is permanent and that no duplication of acquisition effort is necessary.
Preparation. Every record has been transcribed to render it fully searchable and taggable. Images have been assigned metadata recording provenance, licensing terms, and resolution specifications for publication purposes.
Publication. The publicly available inventory represents all records for which the requisite permissions have been obtained.
In order to ensure consistency and intellectual coherence across the archive, all prospective additions are evaluated against the following criteria, which are applied collectively and in sequence. A record should satisfy the majority of these criteria before inclusion is considered.
Relevance. The record must have a demonstrable and direct connection to the Six Shires (Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Dorset, Gloucestershire, and Wiltshire) as the location of practice, the origin of practitioners, or the primary institutional context. Records concerning Westcountry practitioners competing elsewhere (in London, the United States, or South Africa, for example) are eligible where the practitioner’s regional identity is explicitly identified in the source. Records documenting the export of Westcountry martial arts beyond Britain are admissible and desirable, consistent with existing holdings relating to California, Japan, New Zealand, and South Africa. The record must concern one or more of the three disciplines in scope: Westcountry wrestling (Devonshire or Cornish style), cudgelling or single-stick as practised in the region, or pugilism and boxing with a demonstrable Westcountry connection. Records documenting the co-occurrence of two or more disciplines are particularly valuable and should be prioritised.
Integrity. The source must be primary or a reliable early secondary record. For newspaper sources, this means a contemporaneous report; for books, a first or early edition, or a verified transcription thereof. Secondary scholarship is admissible where it contains primary-source quotations not otherwise independently accessible, provided these are clearly identified as such.
Balanced representation. The curatorial target is approximate parity — not of record count, which will inevitably reflect the uneven survival of evidence — but of intellectual representation across the three core disciplines. Where any discipline is underrepresented relative to this target, acquisitions in that discipline should be prioritised accordingly.
Material culture. Physical objects — trophies, belts, equipment, and architectural features — are admissible where they carry inscriptions or documentary provenance that independently attest to the practice of a discipline in the region.
Verifiability. The source must be identifiable with sufficient bibliographic precision to be cited in APA format and, where possible, to be independently verified by a reader consulting the original. Oral tradition, undocumented folklore, and secondary paraphrases without citation do not meet this standard. Where a source is available online, a direct URL must be provided.
