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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.
35 references to Wrestling, including: Much as I longed to know more about Lorna, and though all my heart was yearning, I could not reconcile it yet with my duty to mother and Annie, to leave them on the following day, which happened to be a Sunday. For lo, before breakfast was out of our […]
“The play of Cornwall and Devonshire is the same, with a difference. They both have the jacket, and they play for a hitch in the same fashion. Sticklers are appointed, who keep the ring, and the public are present in crowds. In Cornwall, however, the man steps into the ring in his stockings or socks. […]
pp.622, A minor reference to a Devonshire Wrestling in a fictional work. Reference to good breeding. “Upon my word, madam,” the General protested, “you use the doctor badly. He is blamed if he kills people, and he is blamed if he keeps them alive. What is he to do?” “Do? He can’t help saving the […]
Appearing in The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, pp.65. Illustrated by Alfred Concanen.
An original pen-and-ink sketch by Alfred Concanen, featured on pagee 236 of The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (5 June 1875).
From the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, July 8th, 1876. Drawing called “Devon Wrestling- “No Doubt About It.” Illustrated by Alfred Concanen.
(pp35) Prize-fighting was then the order of the day ; and a set-to between two professionals of celebrity would bring together men of all ranks, patricians and proletarians, from the most remote parts of England, to witness what it would have been heresy then to call a barbarous exhibition. The vale of Bicester, being […]
This county [of Devon] as it is populous, so are the natives of a good and healthy constitution of body; of proportion and stature generally tall, strong, and well compact; active and apt for any forcible exercises (and if I may have leave to borrow a stranger’s words in their encomium); bold, martial, haughty of […]
Single Stick or Cudgel Playing is a very useful science, if learnt with the view of self preservation; but when practised as a game or amusement it is thoroughly brutal. The playing, as it was erroneously called, was conducted as follows Half-a-dozen casks were rolled on the Parade or some open place, on which were […]
In Henry VIII’s reign, at a festival at Greenwich, several champions stood forth to contend with all comers at wrestling “in all manner of ways.” There is, however, much reason to suppose that neither then, nor for a long time after, did any of those ” manners ” include the Devonshire style ; for about […]
CANN Abraham the Dict states VIII 410 was baptized at Colebrooke near Crediton 2 Dec 1794 and was the son of Robert Cann a farmer from whom he inherited a love of wrestling. Having thrown all the best wrestlers in Devonshire he was known as the champion of the county and in Oct 1826 wrestled […]
Devon wrestling differs from most other modes. It would, however, be easy to demonstrate its superiority over that practised by other wrestlers, who are unable, with any amount of success, to meet any stranger who does not conform to their own style, whereas knowledge of Devon wrestling enables man to successfully meet whomsoever cares to […]
Accession/loan number: 406/1997 Inscription: obverse, on disc at centre of cross engraved by hand and fretted ‘PRESENTED TO/ MASTER CHARLES JENNINGS/ BY/ MR.W.JAMES/ CHAMPION WRESTLER OF DEVON/ AND CITIZENS/ OF/ ST.SIDWELLS EXETER’. Reverse is engraved by hand and fretted ‘F.T.DEPREE.EXETER./ ON ACCOUNT/ OF HIS/ WONDERFUL SKILLS AS A MUSICIAN,/ BONE-PLAYER AND CLOG-DANCER./ tutored by his […]
Whilst the games went on, or between the intervals, songs were sung. “I’ll sing’y one,” said Olver, “was a favourite, and were sung to encourage the youngsters.” 1. “I sing of champions bold, That wrestled–not for gold; And all the cry Was ‘Will Trefry,’ That he would win the day. So Will Trefry, huzzah! The […]
WRESTLING. (Page 166) IT is very difficult to give directions for wrestling in intelligible language. If you had hold of me, I could say, “Now put your foot so, and turn your hip so—that’s it;” and how a sudden heave like this,” and so forth. But so in attempting the task on pencil, or by […]
FENCING BY WALTER H. POLLOCK, F. C. GROVE, AND CAMILLE PREVOST, MAITRE D’ARMES WITH A COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ART BY EGERTON CASTLE, M.A., F.S.A. BOXING BY E. B. MICHELL WRESTLING BY WALTER ARMSTRONG WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPHS Second Edition LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1890 All rights reserved (Page 184) ….was unable to […]
(pp167)…Joe beckoned me in, and I went round to the back of the table and looked on. As the men came up from the group round the door, when their names were called out, the umpires said a few words to each of them and then gave them their prizes, and most of them made […]
(pp175) The difference between Devon and Cornish wrestling consists in this, that in a Devon wrestle kicking is admissible ; but then, as a protection to their shins, the antagonists have their legs wreathed with haybands (vulgo skillibegs). As the legs were on this occasion unprotected, Devon wrestling was inadmissible. Both fashions were in vogue […]
Excerpt referring to Wrestling, in discussion about ‘Author’s counties’, in ‘Atalanta’: Volume 8 (1895) …. Another of Mr Blackmore’s novels is set partly in Devon it is that of ‘Clara Vaughan’ one of his earliest if not his earliest work. It is not equal to his later novels and yet contains in it scenes of […]
20th August 1895: That was a capital little wrestling match which came off in the marsh at Topsham a few days since. The police were in the dark until it was all over. The match was locally known as Devon versus Cornwall, and resulted in a victory for Devon. One of Topsham’s celebrities happened to […]
WRESTLING THE CORNISH AND DEVONSHIRE STYLES Wrestling is a very ancient game. Jacob wrestled with an angel, recorded in Scripture of great antiquity. The Greeks wrestled at the Isthmian and Olympic games, and later the Amphitheatre of Rome was a wrestling ring. It was a game in those days for the amusement of the public, […]
(pp99) Among the places in which preaching was regularly established were the villages of Landkey and Swymbridge. In these parishes, the presentation to which is vested in the Dean and Chapter of Exeter, the tithes had fallen into the hands of a lay impropriator, and “ duty ” of both churches was at that time […]
THE MYTH OF BRUTUS THE TROJAN. By the late R. N. Worth, F.G.S., etc. rutus, son of Sylvius, grandson of Æneas the Trojan, killed his father while hunting, was expelled from Italy, and settled in Greece. Here the scattered Trojans, to the number of seven thousand, besides women and children, placed themselves under his command, […]
Synopsis The story follows Daniel Sweetland, a high-spirited and controversial young man known for his poaching activities. His life becomes increasingly complicated due to his deep love for the moors and his conflicts with local authority, specifically his father, who serves as the head gamekeeper. Wrongful Accusation: Daniel is falsely accused of a serious crime: often […]
(Feature image: The Sporting Life, November 1901). This Japanese form of self-defence is, without doubt, far superior either to ancient or modern style of Devonshire or any other county form of wrestling, when matched side by side. The grips used are entirely different, and they are both effective and deadly in character. If the opponent […]
Chapter XIII Wrestling Wrestling had become one of the least practised of our old English sports, till the recent revival of the art as a music-hall “turn” — a use for which it was particularly well adapted, inasmuch as a Wrestling Match never fails to hold the interest of the spectator from first to last […]
We have read of his Cornish father’s prowess in “the art of fisticuffery,” and might certainly have looked for a spirited account of the affair at Bodmin Bridge when the terror of all Plymouth and Devonport was vanquished, and another of the fracas at Menheniot Fair. But we should probably also have had an essay […]