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 […]
John Slade, Champion Wrestler (Devon and Cornwall). Featured in The Illustrated Sporting News. Engraved by Moore V. Williamson. Original page in the archives of DWS.
Devon and Cornwall Wrestling Matches.—These annual matches took place on Good Friday, at Hackney Wick, in the open air. The custom of wrestling in boots was done away with, and all the men wrestled with stockinged feet. The value of the prizes was £60. R. Haywood (Devon) and Richard Dear (Cornwall)—After a dog throw, Haywood […]
CORNWALL AND DEVON WRESTLING SOCIETY. THE CHAMPIONSHIP. The annual meeting of this society commenced at Hackney Wick, on Good Friday. There were fully three thousand persons present, the visitors taking much interest in the wrestling, which was carried out strictly in the Cornwall and Devon style, the “fair back fall.” Although open to all counties, […]
DEVON WRESTLING. BY ARGUS.—NO. III. It is now many years since Cann made all Devonians proud of his splendid wrestling bouts, not only in this County, but in Leeds, London, and other places. Since his time many others have been brought into notice, perhaps none more prominently than the late Thomas Cooper, who being several […]
Henry Downes Miles’s three-volume Pugilistica (1880; reissued 1906) is the most comprehensive Victorian history of the British prize ring. Its entries for Hen Pearce, the Game Chicken, and the Bristol school of pugilism contain primary-source quotations from period newspapers not otherwise readily available. The work spans the same era as the DWS archive’s principal wrestling […]
THE WRESTLING AT SOUTHMOLTON. Play was resumed on Friday at the Star Grounds, Southmolton. These are admirably suited to the occasion, being very large, and the play taking place on the green sward. The commodious Grand Stand was again well patronised by many leading gentlemen and farmers from the town and neighbourhood. The weather was […]
DEVON AND CORNWALL WRESTLING “CHAMPIONSHIP.” Rundle has thrown Pike several times, but it is a question whether any match between them was really for the championship. Any promoter of Wrestling could, and often does, put up prizes and call them for the championship; but this does not make them so—otherwise there would be no end […]
Wrestling Devon — The wrestling matches at Dartmouth for prizes amounting £50, were concluded on Friday afternoon, in the enclosure at the Newground, when there was a large attendance, and some very good sport was shown. Mr. Hobson and Mr. Le Morel acted as referees, and Mr. George Stone, Crediton, as judge. Standards were made […]
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 […]
DEVONSHIRE WRESTLING. Wrestling matches at Exeter concluded on Monday in the presence of a large number of spectators. The prizes were £10 and two silver cups. Some good play was shewn by Battishill of Dewsteignton, and a man of the Royal Marines. As there was no prospect of either obtaining a back, the men tossed […]
WRESTLING THE DEVONSHIRE STYLE. Foremost among old English sports stood the art of wrestling, and there are few Devonshire lovers of wrestling who have not seen or heard the story of the prowess of Abraham Cann, their 12st. 7lb. Devonshire champion, who challenged the world to wrestle the Devonshire style for 100 sovereigns. Cann, who […]
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 […]
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.
