Outplay Wrestling in Britain and Ireland: A Multi-Regional Sporting Culture

The term ‘outplay wrestling’ — referring to jacket-based wrestling styles in which competitors commenced with elbow-and-collar grips and, in certain regional variants, could shift holds during play — encompassed a diverse range of traditions across Britain and Ireland during the nineteenth century. Whilst historiography has overwhelmingly emphasised the inter-county rivalry between the Devon and Cornish traditions, archival evidence drawn from contemporary newspapers reveals a far more complex multi-regional sporting culture. Active wrestlers from Ireland, Norfolk, Hampshire, Somerset, Derbyshire, Cumberland, and other counties competed regularly in London’s commercial wrestling arenas and provincial tournaments during the peak decade of the 1820s. This article examines the documented participation, competitive records, stylistic classifications, and technical variations of British and Irish outplay wrestlers, demonstrating that jacket-based wrestling was considerably more widespread than established historiography has acknowledged.

1. Introduction: Defining Outplay Wrestling

The earliest systematic attempt to classify English wrestling styles was made by Sir Thomas Parkyns, the Nottinghamshire baronet and wrestling enthusiast, in his Progymnasmata: The Inn-Play, or Cornish-Hugg Wrestler (1713; revised editions 1714, 1727). Parkyns drew a fundamental distinction between two principal modes of wrestling practised in England. The first, which he termed ‘in-play’ (also called the ‘Cornish hugg’), was characterised by close-quarter grappling, hugging, and heaving — an approach in which wrestlers sought to draw their opponent into the body and throw by means of shoulder and arm techniques. The second, which he termed ‘out-play’, was characterised by wrestling at arm’s length, with a greater emphasis on leg techniques: kicks, trips, sweeps, and locks (Parkyns, 1727, pp. 10–11).

Parkyns was not entirely complimentary towards out-play. He observed that it ‘depends much upon plucking and tearing of clothes, wasting time to break his adversary’s shins’, and argued that in-play ‘soon decides who is the better gamester, by an undisputable fall’ (Parkyns, 1727, pp. 10–11). Nevertheless, his taxonomy remains foundational. According to Parkyns, the two most popular styles of wrestling in England were Norfolk’s out-play and Bedfordshire’s in-play, of which the Cornish were reputed to be the finest exponents (Pashayev, n.d.; Parkyns, 1727). The Devon style, which permitted kicking and tripping alongside jacket holds, was firmly categorised as out-play.

What united these diverse traditions — Devonshire, Norfolk, Irish Collar-and-Elbow, and, in its own distinctive manner, Cornish wrestling — was the use of a jacket as the primary medium through which grips were taken and techniques executed. The jacket, originally nothing more than the undergarments of the working class, became the defining artefact of these styles (Walker, 1840, p. 25). As Walker described, wrestlers would put on ‘a loose jacket, made of canvass, tied in front with two strings, and reaching as far down as the hips’, with sleeves ‘made very loose for the convenience of both parties in taking hold at the elbow or wrist’ (Walker, 1840, p. 25).

This article contends that the outplay traditions of Britain and Ireland constituted not isolated regional curiosities but a broadly interconnected sporting culture, sharing fundamental principles of jacket-based grappling whilst exhibiting meaningful regional variation in grip rules, permitted techniques, and competitive conventions.

2. A taxonomy of Jacket Wrestling styles

The following table provides a comparative overview of the principal jacket-based wrestling styles documented in Britain and Ireland during the period under consideration. The classification draws upon Parkyns (1727), Walker (1840), contemporary newspaper reports, and the modern scholarship of MacFadden (2021) and the Devonshire Wrestling Society’s Westcountry Wrestling Textbook (2024).

Table 1: Comparative classification of Jacket Wrestling styles in Britain and Ireland

Table 2: Grip systems compared

Sources: Parkyns (1727); Walker (1840); Leeds Intelligencer, 3 April 1828; MacFadden (2021); collarandelbow.ie; DWS Westcountry Wrestling Textbook (2024); Pashayev (n.d.).

The classification reveals a spectrum rather than a binary division. At one extreme, Devonshire wrestling permitted the greatest freedom of grip change — the ‘loose-hold’ approach. At the other, Irish Collar-and-Elbow enforced strict adherence to the initial grip, which, as the Irish Collar and Elbow Wrestling Association has observed, ‘was precisely this fixed hold requirement that led to the development of Collar and Elbow’s renowned arsenal of trips and other leg attacks’ (collarandelbow.ie, n.d.). Norfolk wrestling appears to have occupied a position closer to the Irish model, with fixed grips at arm’s length and a strong emphasis on footwork. Cornish wrestling, though classified as ‘inplay’ by Parkyns, shared the jacket medium with its outplay counterparts but differed fundamentally in its emphasis on closing the distance and employing shoulder-and-arm throws.

3. The London Wrestling Circuit: A Metropolitan Hub

London served as the primary arena for inter-regional and inter-national wrestling competition during the 1820s. Three principal venues hosted regular contests:

The Eagle Tavern, City Road, was the primary venue for Devon-style wrestling and hosted the Annual Devonshire Wrestling tournaments from at least 1826. The Golden Eagle, Mile-end-road, served as the site of major challenge matches, including the celebrated encounters between Abraham Cann and Gaffney (October 1827) and between James Copp and Gaffney (May–June 1827). The Wellington Cricket Ground, Chelsea, was the principal venue for Cornish-style wrestling (Exeter Flying Post, 7 June 1827).

These venues operated as commercial sporting enterprises. Proprietors such as Mr Hone of the Eagle Tavern and Mr Dignum of the Black Boy, Long-acre, served simultaneously as stakeholders, match-makers, and publicans. Entry fees ranged from sixpence to one shilling, and the events featured ‘commodious rings’, erected booths, and brass bands providing entertainment between bouts (Exeter Flying Post, 22 June 1827).

The capital’s cosmopolitan population — swelled by workers and migrants from across the British Isles — created the conditions for a genuinely multi-regional wrestling culture. The Exeter Flying Post of 7 June 1827 recorded that at the grand match at the Wellington cricket ground, ‘as well as from Cornwall and Devon, men from Ireland, Hampshire, Norfolk, and Derbyshire, have been entered the lists.’ This was no isolated occurrence; the evidence demonstrates that wrestlers from at least ten counties and from Ireland competed regularly in London tournaments throughout the decade.

Tournament structure

Tournaments followed a standardised progression that was broadly consistent across venues. On the first day, single play saw wrestlers competing to become ‘standards’ — qualified competitors — by either throwing an opponent or ‘holding out’ (wrestling for eight minutes without conceding a fall). Standards received payments of five to seven shillings. On subsequent days, double play matched standards in pairs; to progress, a wrestler needed to throw two opponents or throw one and hold out with two others for the required duration. Further rounds — triple, quadruple, and quintuple play — progressively eliminated competitors until final prize-winners emerged (Exeter Flying Post, 26 July 1827; Leeds Intelligencer, 3 April 1828).

Prize structures varied according to the scale of the event. The St Sidwell’s match at Exeter in July 1827 offered £10 for first place, £5 for second, £3 for third, and £1 for fourth, with double players receiving five shillings. The Leeds Grand Match of Easter 1828 — the most ambitious inter-regional competition of the period — offered £30 for first place, descending to £5 for sixth, plus £1 per double player and travelling expenses (Leeds Intelligencer, 3 April 1828). Total purses at Leeds were estimated to exceed £500, a very substantial sum (Exeter Flying Post, 13 March 1828).

4. Irish Wrestlers in the London Arena

4.1 The Irish Contingent

The Irish presence in London’s wrestling scene of the late 1820s was dominated by several notable athletes. Chief amongst them was Gaffney, described variously as ‘the champion of Ireland’ and ‘the best Irishman in this country’ (Exeter Flying Post, 4 October 1827; 26 July 1827). Other prominent Irish wrestlers included Allen, who defeated Gaffney and was subsequently described as ‘the best Irishman in this country, having thrown Gaffney’; Laurence Hanlon (or Hanlow), a formidable man of nearly fourteen stone; Finney (or Finnon), who distinguished himself at the Fourth Annual Devon Wrestling in April 1829 and who, remarkably, ‘accidentally, but fairly, threw Abraham Cann, at Leeds’; and Larkins, whose bout with Easton at St Sidwell’s lasted forty minutes (Exeter Flying Post, 26 July 1827; Sherborne Mercury, 27 April 1829; Morning Chronicle, 20 May 1828).

These men competed not merely as individuals but as representatives of their nation. Contemporary reports frequently referred to their supporters as ‘the Hibernians’ or ‘Emeralders’, and documented the partisan enthusiasm with which their matches were followed (Exeter Flying Post, 29 May 1828).

4.2 The Irish Wrestling style

A critical question concerns the style of wrestling these Irish competitors employed. The matches were contested under Devonshire or composite rules — ‘hand to collar’ grips with ‘side and back’ falls permitted, and light shoes or padding worn (Exeter Flying Post, 4 October 1827). Irish wrestlers appear to have adapted to these conditions rather than imposing their own Collar-and-Elbow conventions. Gaffney, for instance, was noted for his ‘Cornish hugs’, throwing Copp ‘almost over his head’ in the early falls of their 1827 encounter, suggesting familiarity with inplay techniques as well as outplay (Exeter Flying Post, 7 June 1827). This cross-pollination is not surprising. Irish Collar-and-Elbow, as MacFadden (2021) has demonstrated, was itself a leg-centric outplay style, and the transition to Devon-style rules — which similarly emphasised trips, sweeps, and kicks — would not have been technically alien to an experienced Irish wrestler.

The principal difficulty faced by Irish wrestlers in Devon-style competition was the severity of shin-kicking. The celebrated Cann–Gaffney encounter of October 1827 provides the most vivid testimony. Gaffney ‘kicked very much at the shins of Cann, but they exhibited no signs of punishment, though the sound resounded through the ring; whilst, after Cann had inflicted a few retorts upon the shins of Gaffney, his worsted stockings were sopped with blood, and his laced shoe of the left foot seemed saturated like that of a slaughterer from the shambles’ (Exeter Flying Post, 4 October 1827). This asymmetry — the Devon men’s hardened shins and purpose-built shoes against the Irish wrestlers’ relative inexperience of sustained kicking exchanges — constituted a significant competitive disadvantage.

4.3 Major encounters: a chronological survey

Copp versus Gaffney (May–June 1827). The first major Irish-Devon encounter was contested at the Golden Eagle, Mile-end-road, for £10, with the first three falls out of five to decide the match. Betting patterns reveal contemporary assessments of relative ability: Devon supporters backed Copp at odds of £50 to £30, whilst Irish partisans offered five to three and seven to four on Gaffney (Exeter Flying Post, 7 June 1827). Gaffney secured the first two falls through powerful hugs but Copp’s superior technical skill prevailed in subsequent bouts, and the Devonshire man won decisively.

Cann versus Gaffney (October 1827). The most significant Irish-Devon encounter took place on Monday, 1 October 1827, at the Golden Eagle. The match was contested for sixty guineas on Cann’s part to fifty for Gaffney, with the first three fair back falls to decide victory. A great concourse of spectators attended, with some two hundred persons climbing poplar trees to observe when conventional viewing spaces became overcrowded. A portion of the tiled roofing collapsed under the weight of spectators, precipitating ‘some hundreds of persons to the ground’ (Exeter Flying Post, 4 October 1827). Cann won the first fall in four minutes and fifty seconds with ‘a beautiful throw, given in the best possible style’, and the second in one minute and forty seconds. The contest ended when Gaffney’s left shoulder was dislocated during the third bout.

Copp versus Hanlon (May 1828). At the Eagle Tavern, City Road, James Copp faced Laurence Hanlon for £20 a side. Despite Hanlon’s substantial weight advantage — ‘nearly 14 stone weight, opposed to one scarcely 12’ — Copp’s superior science prevailed. Irish supporters retired ‘highly chagrined at the result of the match, many of them considerably minus in pocket’ (Morning Chronicle, 20 May 1828; Exeter Flying Post, 29 May 1828).

4.4 Irish performance

Of documented matches between Irish and Devon wrestlers during the period 1827–1829, the surviving record indicates approximately nine Devon victories against one clear Irish victory (Allen over an unspecified opponent), with two contests disputed or unresolved. This approximately ten per cent victory rate for Irish wrestlers reflects both the technical superiority of established Devon champions — particularly Cann and Copp — and the difficulty Irish competitors faced in adapting to Devon-style kicking. It should be noted, however, that Irish wrestlers regularly achieved ‘standard’ and ‘double player’ status in tournaments, indicating genuine competitive competence even when ultimate victories eluded them.

5. Norfolk Wrestlers in Multi-Regional Competition

Norfolk’s claim as a wrestling county of historical significance is well attested. Parkyns himself identified Norfolk’s out-play as one of the two most popular wrestling styles in England (Parkyns, 1727). The Pashayev research on traditional English wrestling notes that ‘the best collar wrestlers of England came from the Norfolk County’, and observes that the crest of the local noble family De Gournay (modern spelling Gurney) of West Barsham and Keswick featured a wrestling collar in an enamelled ring (Pashayev, n.d.).

Norfolk wrestling was, like Irish Collar-and-Elbow, a fixed-hold outplay style. Wrestlers took collar-and-elbow or collar-and-hip grips and maintained them throughout the bout, wrestling at arm’s length with a strong emphasis on footwork — trips, hooks, and kicks below the knee. The Norfolk style thus shared its fundamental grammar with both Devon outplay and Irish Collar-and-Elbow, differing primarily in the fixity of the grip (which aligned it with the Irish model) and the acceptance of kicking (which aligned it with the Devon model).

5.1 Documented Norfolk competitors

Ward (1829). The most detailed account of a Norfolk wrestler in the London arena appears in the Sherborne Mercury of 27 April 1829, describing the Fourth Annual Devon Wrestling at the Eagle Tavern. Ward, described as ‘a young man from Norfolk’, was matched against Archer, ‘a new and crack man, from Devonshire’. The report states that ‘great expectations were formed of Archer’s abilities from the rumours that were circulated respecting him; but he found a tough customer in Ward, and had some difficulty in retiring with his good name, as he must again enter the lists before he will be enrolled on the list of standards’ (Sherborne Mercury, 27 April 1829). Ward’s performance — forcing a highly rated Devon newcomer into difficulty — demonstrates that Norfolk wrestlers possessed sufficient skill to challenge regional champions at the highest level.

Robert Bond (mid-nineteenth century). Bond’s progress through a multi-round tournament is documented through successive stages. In double play, ‘Robert Bond, of Norfolk, threw Eason, of Somerset, by the heaving-toe, after many foils.’ In triple play, ‘Bowden and Bond first contending; and, after a long struggle, Bond was thrown by the hanging-toe.’ Bond’s progression to triple play confirms that he achieved double-player status — a meaningful competitive accomplishment — and his defeat of Somerset representation followed by an extended bout with the Cornish wrestler Bowden demonstrates competitive parity with other regional traditions.

6. Other Regional Participants

The London tournaments attracted wrestlers from still further afield, confirming the genuinely national scope of the outplay wrestling culture.

Table 3: Multi-Regional Participation in London Wrestling, 1827–1829

The case of Mossop of Cumberland is particularly instructive. Cumberland wrestling traditionally employed a back-hold rather than a hand-to-collar grip — a fundamentally different starting position. Mossop’s success in adapting to Devon-style rules at the St Sidwell’s tournament, where he progressed to double-player status and gave Copp ‘much trouble’, indicates either prior familiarity with outplay methods or remarkable athletic versatility (Exeter Flying Post, 26 July 1827).

Similarly, Joseph Butler of Nottingham (‘the Nottingham Blue Cap’) is significant not for his competitive results but for his explicit challenge to Abraham Cann in April 1828, in which he insisted upon wrestling ‘according to the regular rules of English wrestling, as laid down and published by Sir Thomas Parkyns, Bart., in 1727’ — thereby rejecting Devon rules and asserting the legitimacy of Midlands wrestling traditions (Bell’s Life in London, 27 April 1828). Butler’s challenge illuminates the tensions between regional rule-sets and the ongoing negotiation required to stage inter-regional competition.

7. The 1828 Leeds Grand Match: A National Championship

The most ambitious attempt to establish inter-regional wrestling supremacy was the Great Wrestling Match at Haigh Park, Leeds, held over Easter 1828. The Leeds Intelligencer of 3 April 1828 advertised for competitors from ‘YORKSHIRE, LEICESTERSHIRE, LINCOLNSHIRE, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE, DERBYSHIRE, CUMBERLAND, and the surrounding Counties, and a Number of picked WRESTLERS from LONDON, DEVONSHIRE, CORNWALL, and IRELAND.’

The rules adopted were explicitly composite — a pragmatic compromise designed to accommodate wrestlers from different traditions. Competitors were ‘first to place One Hand to Collar, after which they may shift their Holds as they please, confining themselves to the Jacket, fair Back Falls’ (Leeds Intelligencer, 3 April 1828). This was essentially the Devon loose-hold system, though the specification of ‘light shoes, that the legs of a dancing master would be in no danger’ represented a concession to northern and Cornish wrestlers alarmed by Devon kicking practices (Leeds Intelligencer, 20 March 1828).

Table 4: Leeds Grand Match Results, Easter 1828

Source: Exeter Flying Post, 17 April 1828; Leeds Intelligencer, 3 April 1828.

Devon’s near-total dominance — securing at least four of the six prize positions — vindicated their self-perception as, in the language of the period, ‘the crack Wrestlers in the Kingdom.’ The tournament’s explicitly national scope makes this result particularly significant as a test of relative regional prowess.

8. The kicking controversy, and the reform of Outplay

Devonshire wrestling’s most distinctive and controversial feature was shin-kicking. The practice generated significant opposition and was arguably the single greatest obstacle to the wider adoption of outplay wrestling as a unified national sport.

A retrospective account from 1926 credited John Stone of the Plymouth Inn, Crediton, with being ‘one of the first to cut out of the Devonshire game that inhuman kicking business which often maimed opponents and certainly made good men from Cornwall and other parts of the country reluctant to join issue’ (Western Times, 23 July 1926). The Globe and Traveller (October 1826) similarly noted northern wrestlers’ reluctance to face Devon men’s ‘dreadful shoes’.

The progressive mitigation of kicking severity is documented through the period. Matches increasingly stipulated ‘light shoes’ or padding, and the Leeds Grand Match explicitly specified footwear that would pose no danger to ‘the legs of a dancing master’ (Leeds Intelligencer, 20 March 1828). This reforming tendency may be understood as a necessary accommodation to enable the multi-regional competition that the commercial London circuit and ambitious events like the Leeds Grand Match required.

9. Economic and social dimensions

9.1 Stakes and wagers

The financial stakes of outplay wrestling were substantial. Challenge matches ranged from £10 to over £60 per side, with side bets frequently exceeding the formal stakes. The Cann–Gaffney encounter (October 1827) was contested for £110 in total stakes (sixty guineas to fifty), with individual side bets of £50 to £30 documented (Exeter Flying Post, 4 October 1827; 7 June 1827). At a period when a skilled artisan might earn approximately £40–50 per annum, these were very significant sums.

9.2 Audience composition

Contemporary accounts describe mixed-class audiences. ‘Near 2000 persons of respectable appearance were on the ground, and few, if any black-legs made their appearance’ at St Sidwell’s (Exeter Flying Post, 26 July 1827). The Cann–Gaffney match attracted ‘great numbers of sporting characters’ alongside the ‘respectable’ spectators, suggesting that wrestling occupied an ambiguous social position between popular entertainment and gentlemanly patronage (Exeter Flying Post, 4 October 1827).

10. Outplay as a ‘Wrestling Culture’

The evidence presented in this article demonstrates that outplay wrestling — jacket-based, standing grappling with an emphasis on leg techniques — was not confined to Devon and Cornwall but constituted a genuinely multi-regional sporting culture spanning Britain and Ireland during the early nineteenth century. Norfolk wrestlers, Irish Collar-and-Elbow competitors, and representatives from Hampshire, Somerset, Cumberland, Derbyshire, and other counties all participated in a competitive circuit that, whilst dominated by Devonshire and Cornish practitioners, accommodated and recognised a considerable diversity of regional traditions.

The stylistic analysis reveals a coherent family of related traditions. All employed a jacket as the gripping medium. All commenced from a collar-and-elbow or collar-based grip. All emphasised standing throws and falls rather than groundwork. The principal axis of variation concerned the fixity of the grip (loose-hold in Devon, fixed-hold in Norfolk and Ireland) and the extent to which kicking was permitted or emphasised. Cornish wrestling, classified as ‘inplay’ by Parkyns, remained the outlier in its preference for close-quarter hugging and heaving, yet shared the jacket medium and much of the competitive infrastructure with its outplay counterparts.

The London metropolitan circuit — centred on the Eagle Tavern, Golden Eagle, and Wellington Ground — served as the primary mechanism for inter-regional competition, attracting wrestlers through substantial prize money, commercial opportunities, and the prospect of establishing regional supremacy. The 1828 Leeds Grand Match represented the apex of this multi-regional culture, explicitly framing competition as a national championship.

The eventual decline of this multi-regional wrestling culture resulted from multiple factors: urbanisation reducing rural participant pools; evangelical moral objections to ‘brutal’ sports; increasing class stratification relegating wrestling to ‘low’ entertainment; and competition from newly organised sports. The controversial practice of shin-kicking generated particular opposition, contributing to wrestling’s marginalisation in all but the most committed heartlands. Nevertheless, the 1820s evidence reveals a sophisticated sporting culture characterised by standardised rules, substantial economic stakes, partisan regional support, detailed press coverage, and genuine inter-regional competition. This dimension has been obscured by historiographical emphasis on the Devon–Cornish rivalry alone, yet it represents an essential component of early nineteenth-century British and Irish sporting history.

References

Primary Sources (Newspapers)

Bell’s Life in London. (27 April 1828). Challenge from Joseph Butler to Abraham Cann.

Exeter and Plymouth Gazette. (28 July 1827). St Sidwell’s wrestling match.

Exeter Flying Post. (7 June 1827). Matches are made in London between Copp, from Devonshire, and Gaffney, an Irishman.

Exeter Flying Post. (14 June 1827). The Paignton match.

Exeter Flying Post. (22 June 1827). [Tournament arrangements and venue details].

Exeter Flying Post. (26 July 1827). [St Sidwell’s wrestling match, complete report].

Exeter Flying Post. (4 October 1827). The wrestling match between Cann the celebrated Devonshire wrestler, and Gaffney.

Exeter Flying Post. (13 March 1828). [Leeds Grand Match advertisement and expenses].

Exeter Flying Post. (17 April 1828). [Leeds Grand Match results].

Exeter Flying Post. (29 May 1828). Wrestling match [Copp and Hanlon].

Globe and Traveller. (October 1826). [Northern wrestlers’ reluctance].

Leeds Intelligencer. (20 March 1828). [Correspondence regarding rules and footwear at Leeds Grand Match].

Leeds Intelligencer. (3 April 1828). Great Wrestling Match at Haigh Park.

Morning Chronicle. (20 May 1828). Wrestling.

Sherborne Mercury. (27 April 1829). Devonshire: Annual Devon Wrestling.

Western Times. (23 July 1926). Devonshire wrestling: Proposed revival of the game in the county.

Secondary Sources and Modern Scholarship

Baring-Gould, S. (1908). Devonshire characters and strange events. John Lane. Available at: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Devonshire_Characters_and_Strange_Events/Devonshire_Wrestlers

Devonshire Wrestling Society. (2024). Westcountry wrestling: Official textbook. Devonshire Wrestling Society. Available at: https://www.devonshirewrestling.org/https://www.devonshirewrestling.org/product/westcountry-wrestling/

Irish Collar and Elbow Wrestling Association. (n.d.). Building the modern ruleset for Irish Collar and Elbow wrestling. Available at: https://collarandelbow.ie/building-the-modern-ruleset-for-irish-collar-and-elbow-wrestling/

MacFadden, R. (2021). Irish Collar and Elbow wrestling. Fallen Rook Publishing. ISBN 978-1-913066-00-0. Available at: https://www.fallenrookpublishing.co.uk/books/irish-collar-and-elbow-wrestling/

Parkyns, Sir T. (1727). Progymnasmata: The inn-play, or Cornish-hugg wrestler (3rd ed.). Accessible modern edition published by Devonshire Wrestling Society. Available at: https://www.devonshirewrestling.org/product/cornish-wrestling/

Pashayev, R. (n.d.). Collar-belt wrestling in Minety. Wrestling Heritage. Available at: https://wrestlingheritage.co.uk/collar-belt-wrestling-in-minety/

Traditional Sports. (n.d.). Catch-Hold (England). Available at: https://www.traditionalsports.org/traditional-sports/europe/catch-hold-england.html

Traditional Sports. (n.d.). Devonshire wrestlers. Available at: https://www.traditionalsports.org/news/devonshire-wrestlers.html

Walker, D. (1840). Defensive exercises: Comprising wrestling, as a recreation, and in earnest. Thomas Hurst.

Further reading & resources

The following resources are recommended for readers wishing to explore the subject further:

Organisations:

• The Devonshire Wrestling Society — https://www.devonshirewrestling.org/
• The Cornish Wrestling Association — https://www.cornishwrestling.co.uk/
• The Irish Collar and Elbow Wrestling Association — https://collarandelbow.ie/

Books:

• MacFadden, R. (2021). Irish Collar and Elbow Wrestling. Fallen Rook Publishing.
• Jaouen, G. & Nichols, M. (2007). Celtic Wrestling: The Jacket Styles. FALSAB.
• Parkyns, Sir T. (1727/2024). Cornish Wrestling: The Old-Style In-Play Wrestler (modern annotated edition, DWS).
• Baring-Gould, S. (1908). ‘Devonshire Wrestlers’, in Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.

Digital Archives:

• Crediton Area History & Museum Society — Abraham Cann primary sources: http://creditonhistory.org.uk/history-society/read-our-online-articles/wrestling.aspx
• Wikisource: Baring-Gould’s ‘Devonshire Wrestlers’ — https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Devonshire_Characters_and_Strange_Events/Devonshire_Wrestlers
• Wrestling Heritage (historical British wrestling) — https://wrestlingheritage.co.uk/
• An Claíomh Solais: Collar and Elbow wrestling — https://anclaiomhsolais.com/collar-and-elbow-wrestling