WRESTLING. The Grand Match for One Hundred Sovereigns, and retirement of Mr. Cann, the Champion, from the Ring. This match, which was for 100 sovereigns, between Mr. Abraham Cann, formerly of this city, but late of Colebrook, and Mr. John Ellicombe of Kingsteignton, came off in a spacious ring, in which an area of an […]
Currently resides in the collection of The Honiton Museum, Allhallows, Honiton. Displayed here with express written permission. The DWS wishes to thank the Trustees of Honiton Museum for their permission. The poster reads as follows: WRESTLING KING’S ARMS INN, HONITON. A Grand Match For a Private Purse of Sovereigns, Between W. MATTHEWS and W. TRACE, […]
CORNISH AND DEVON WRESTLING. The first day’s amusement of the above grand match came off on Monday at the Brecknock Arms, Camden Town. The two celebrated wrestlers, Polkinghorne and Cann, were expected to be there as spectators, but Cann was unable to attend in consequence of illness. On the second day’s amusement the old Devonshire […]
An oil painting on canvas, attributed to Henry Caunter (1808-1881). The painting was purchased by RAMM (Royal Albert Memorial Museum. Item no.: 12/1959) in 1959, added to the museum collection where it still resides. This photo was taken by the DWS at the last public display of the painting in April 2022, at RAMM, Exeter. […]
SOUTH ZEAL, In the Parish of SOUTH TAWTON, DEVON. A GRAND WRESTLING MATCH will take place at the Kings Arms Inn, on TUESDAY, the 11th of July, and following days, for THIRTY POUNDS, Which will be played for the old Devonshire style, and open to all Players, with the exception of Messrs. Gundry and Chappel. […]
EXETER. The Devonshire Wrestling Champion.—Mr Langdon, of the Bull Inn, Exeter, assisted by other gentlemen, has succeeded in obtaining £180 for the veteran wrestling champion, Abraham Cann. After much deliberation it has been decided to purchase an annuity in the Norwich Insurance Office, and yesterday the proposal was effected and £200 paid. The champion wrestler […]
WRESTLING. CANN AND POLKINGHORNE. SIR,—The notice in your paper of last week headed “Old Abraham Cann, the Champion Wrestler,” having caught my attention, I was startled very considerably at its contents, and I cannot allow some of the mis-statements contained in it to remain uncontradicted. I have no desire to disparage the virtues of Cann, […]
Portrait of the famous wrestler Abraham Cann in 1864. Now in the public domain. Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical and Musical Review – Saturday 07 May 1864, Page 4.
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 […]
(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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine), 1834-1924 DEVONSHIRE WRESTLERS WRESTLING was the favourite sport in former days in Devonshire and Cornwall. Evelyn, in his Diary, speaks of Westcountrymen in London contesting in London against men of the North, and in all cases the former were the victors. And Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair, 1614, introduces a Western […]
A Wrestling Festival A purely wrestling festival is a most uncommon sight out of doors, but I must recall with great pleasure the day when, at that delightfully situated old Cornish village, St Colomb, the centenary celebrations were held of a great wrestling match when one, Polkinghorne, the Cornish champion, overcame Cann, the pride of […]
The “Devon Hercules” who fought the Cornish and became the Champion of England He’d deliver agonising kicks to the legs of opponents with his hardened bullock-blood boots. Charlotte Vowles, DevonLive reporter 12:39, 27 Jun 2020 Updated 12:58, 27 Jun 2020 A champion wrestler nationally acclaimed for a savage style of fighting, originally came from a […]
(pp355) Every bit as savage as bare-knuckle boxing was the ancient sport of Devon Wrestling, One of the last champions was Abraham Cann, who was nicknamed the Devon Hercules. In this painting by Henry Caunter (c. 1846), Cann is evoked as the last great exponent of the dying art of wrestling according to the brutal […]
A Blue Plaque commemorative at the site of St Bartholomew Street, Exeter. The only remnants of the Public house is now the foundations for the current properties. The Blue Plaque reads: Exeter Civic Society: Abraham Cann 1794-1864 Champion of England at Devonshire wrestling Landlord of the Champion’s Arms public house on this site 1828-1830 DWS […]
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.
