Tripp, Persistence of Difference: A History of Cornish Wrestling (2009)

Michael Tripp’s doctoral thesis, submitted to the University of Exeter in May 2009 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, constitutes the first comprehensive scholarly history of Cornish wrestling. Published in two volumes — the first containing the main analytical text (including introduction, seven substantive chapters, conclusion, and bibliography) and the second comprising twenty-one appendices of supporting data — the work represents a major intervention in both British sport history and Cornish Studies.

The thesis addresses three central research questions: How has Cornish wrestling developed as a sport? Why is Cornish wrestling ‘different’ from other British sporting traditions? And why has Cornish wrestling survived when many comparable regional sports have not? Tripp argues that mainstream British sport history, with its emphasis upon the rationalisation, codification, and commercialisation of ‘modern’ sports from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, offers only a partial interpretive framework for understanding Cornish wrestling, which followed a markedly divergent trajectory. He proposes instead that the ‘new Cornish Studies’ — and specifically Philip Payton’s ‘centre-periphery model’ — provides a more appropriate conceptual apparatus for analysing the sport’s historical development. Payton’s model, which draws upon the work of Rokkan and Urwin and upon Tarrow’s typology of peripherality, posits that Cornwall’s cultural distinctiveness has persisted because its historical experience has been fundamentally different from that of the English ‘centre’ (broadly, London and the south-east) in successive periods. Tripp adopts Payton’s three phases of peripherality as the organising structure of the thesis, and argues that the evidence for Cornish wrestling is broadly consistent with each phase.

The first substantive chapter (Chapter 1) reviews the literatures of British sport history and the ‘new Cornish Studies’, making the case for Payton’s framework. Chapter 2 explores the origins and myths of Cornish wrestling within the context of ‘First’ or ‘Older Peripheralism’, characterised by geographical and cultural isolation from the English centre following Athelstan’s establishment of the Tamar as Cornwall’s boundary in AD 936. Tripp argues that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that Cornish wrestling originated when people who may reasonably be described as ‘Celts’ inhabited Cornwall, and that non-Cornish observers consistently recognised it as a distinctive feature of Cornish life — a recognition in which the Cornish themselves took considerable pride.

Chapter 3 examines the ‘Golden Age’ of Cornish wrestling, roughly spanning the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, which corresponds to the phase of ‘Second Peripheralism’ in Payton’s model. This was a period closely associated with the growth of the Cornish copper and tin mining economy. Cornish wrestling developed into a major commercial enterprise, reaching its zenith in the 1820s, when large numbers of wrestlers competed for substantial prizes in frequent tournaments before crowds numbering in the thousands. The sport formed an integral part of an assertive, confident Cornish identity — the ‘Cousin Jack’ myth — although it was simultaneously under sustained attack from moral reformers, particularly the Methodists, who objected to its associations with drinking, gambling, and fighting.

Chapter 4 investigates the decline of Cornish wrestling from approximately 1850 to 1914, during the mature phase of ‘Second Peripheralism’. Tripp identifies five principal causes for this decline: the ‘Great Migration’, which removed many thousands of young men — including many wrestlers — from Cornwall; the continuing opposition of Methodists; the rise of competing leisure activities; the prevalence of ‘faggoting’ (match-fixing), which alienated spectators; and the general decrease in available leisure time. The number of tournaments reported in The West Briton fell from sixty in the 1850s to a low of eighteen in the 1890s, although a modest revival occurred in the first two decades of the twentieth century before being interrupted by the First World War.

Chapter 5 provides a detailed examination of the ‘Great Migration’ and its effects upon Cornish wrestling. Drawing upon both established scholarship (Dawe, Rowe, Todd) and more recent work by Payton and by contributors to Cornish Studies, Tripp demonstrates that Cornish emigrants established transnational communities across Latin America, Canada, the United States, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and other parts of England and Wales. In virtually all of these locations, evidence survives of Cornish wrestling tournaments continuing well into the twentieth century. However, the gradual assimilation of second-generation Cornish communities — manifested in the loss of the Cornish dialect, the decline of mining, and the adoption of local sports such as baseball and basketball — progressively eroded the sport’s base overseas.

Chapter 6 examines the role of Cornish wrestling within the broader ‘Cornish Revival’ of the early twentieth century and the inter-war period, a key feature of ‘Third Peripheralism’. Significant developments included the formation of the Cornwall County Wrestling Association (CCWA) in 1923, which introduced written rules, timed rounds, a points system, penalties for infringements, and weight categories. The period also witnessed the inauguration of Inter-Celtic wrestling tournaments between Cornwall and Brittany from 1928, largely through the efforts of Tregoning Hooper and the Breton physician Dr Charles Cotonnec. A notable internal tension developed during this period between modernisers and traditionalists, ultimately resulting in a schism when the East Cornwall Wrestling Federation broke away from the CCWA in 1934.

Chapter 7, the final substantive chapter, traces the progress of Cornish wrestling from the Second World War to the time of writing (2009), within the phase of ‘Third Peripheralism’. The post-war period was characterised by alternating cycles of decline and modest revival, persistent funding difficulties, a relatively small number of active wrestlers, and the ever-increasing competition of counter-attractions. Nevertheless, the sport continued to function as an important symbol of Cornish identity, sustained by its involvement in Celtic festivals and cultural events, and by the interest of Cornish nationalists (notably Mebyon Kernow). The Inter-Celtic tournaments with Brittany, which had lapsed in the mid-1980s due to financial constraints, were revived from 2004 onwards.

Tripp’s conclusion reaffirms the thesis’s central argument: that Cornish wrestling is ‘different’, and that this difference has persisted over time precisely because Cornwall’s historical experience has been distinct from that of the rest of Britain in each successive period of peripherality. Crucially, Cornish wrestling has functioned throughout as an icon of ‘Cornishness’, and it is this symbolic significance — rather than the sport’s commercial viability or competitive strength — which has ensured its survival.

Volume 2 comprises twenty-one appendices of empirical data that underpin the thesis’s arguments. These include tabulations of Cornish wrestling prizes as reported in the contemporary press (Appendix 3); records of tournaments and their association with known holidays (Appendix 4); comprehensive venue listings for the periods 1753–1849 and 1850–1939 (Appendices 5, 6, and 20); Tom Gundry’s wrestling record as documented in The West Briton (Appendix 7); a prosopographical register of Cornish wrestlers reported in the press between 1835 and 1904 (Appendix 8); census data for wrestlers drawn from the decennial censuses of 1841 to 1901 (Appendices 9, 12–17); prize winners as reported in The Royal Cornwall Gazette and The West Briton from 1804 onwards (Appendix 10); an analysis of the days of the week on which matches were held (Appendix 19); and a record of Inter-Celtic tournaments between 1928 and 1980 (Appendix 21). Taken together, these appendices represent a substantial body of original prosopographical and quantitative research, drawn principally from Cornish newspaper sources and census returns.

The thesis has since served as the scholarly foundation for Tripp’s subsequent published work, including articles in Sport in History (Tripp, 2023), the International Journal of the History of Sport (Tripp, 2018), and the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall (Tripp, 2017, 2021), as well as a monograph, Cornish Wrestling: A History, published by the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies in 2023.

Freely available online, via University of Exeter.

Tripp, M. (2009). Persistence of difference: A history of Cornish wrestling (Vols. 1–2) [Doctoral thesis, University of Exeter]. Open Research Exeter. Volume 1 (Front matter, Main text). Volume 2 (Front matter, Appendices)

Related:

Tripp, M. (2018). Match-Fixing in Cornish Wrestling during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 35(2–3), 157–172. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2018.1494577

Tripp, M. (2023). Cornish wrestling in the nineteenth century. Sport in History, 43(2), 137–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/17460263.2022.2101022

Tripp, M. (2023). Cornish Wrestling: A History, Federation of Old Cornwall Societies.