James Stone

“The Little Elephant”

Devonshire Wrestler & Farmer (1798–1841)

I. Life and career

James Stone, known throughout the wrestling rings of early nineteenth-century England by the sobriquet “The Little Elephant,” was among the foremost Devonshire wrestlers of the 1820s and one of the most formidable competitors of his generation. Born on 28 March 1798 at Knowle Farm, Crediton, Devon, he was the second son of James Stone and Elizabeth Francis (Colebrooke village history, colebrooke.org; Mid-Devon History, medicalgentlemen.co.uk). In 1804, the family moved to Furzedown Farm in Copplestone, within the parish of Colebrooke — a farm that had been in the Stone family for nearly a century, marking their deep-rooted connection to the region (colebrooke.org). Colebrooke, a village approximately five miles west of Crediton, was a parish whose wrestling pedigree was remarkable: Abraham Cann, Devon’s greatest wrestler, was also a native of the parish, and Stone and Cann were reputed to have been cousins (Mid-Devon History, medicalgentlemen.co.uk; Wikipedia, “Colebrooke, Devon”). The parish’s Bowling Green, or Square, was said to have been used for wrestling matches, and it was here that Cann — and presumably Stone — would have had their earliest practice in the art (Colebrooke Parish History, colebrooke.org).

Stone’s father, James Stone senior, was a prosperous farmer who died in 1822, leaving Furzedown Farm to his widow Elizabeth during her lifetime and thereafter to James (Mid-Devon History, medicalgentlemen.co.uk). The younger James thus inherited both the farm and a secure position in the rural society of central Devon — a background typical of the yeoman class from which the finest Devon wrestlers were drawn.

Stone’s physical appearance was the source of both his nickname and his fame. He stood only 5 ft 4 in. tall but weighed over 13 stone — a compact, powerfully built man whose muscular frame belied his short stature (colebrooke.org; Mid-Devon History, medicalgentlemen.co.uk). The Morning Chronicle, reporting on a bout at the Eagle Tavern in London in 1827, offered the description that would become canonical: Stone was a man of short stature but possessed of a muscular frame and extraordinary athletic powers, from which he derived his popular appellation (Egan, 1836, pp. 321–336). The Eagle Tavern, on the City Road — the very pub immortalised in the nursery rhyme “Pop Goes the Weasel” — was one of London’s great entertainment complexes of the 1820s, hosting balloon flights, wrestling, concerts, and a wide range of popular performers (Layers of London, layersoflondon.org; Wikipedia, “Royal Grecian Theatre”). Its proprietor, Thomas Rouse, was described by Egan as “a host within himself” who managed the sporting entertainments with considerable tact (Egan, 1836). It was in this metropolitan setting that Stone’s Devon reputation was projected onto a national stage.

The earliest documented competitive appearance of James Stone is at the North Tawton match of 1824, where he won the first prize of a ten-sovereign purse after a contest so fiercely fought between the neighbouring parishes that the struggle continued until midnight (Exeter Flying Post, 12 August 1824). By August of the same year he was listed among the leading wrestlers at the great Okehampton match alongside Cann, Jordan, Woolaway, and Jackman, and took the third prize after throwing the formidable James Jury — a man of 6 ft 3 in. — in a forty-minute bout before an estimated 6,000–7,000 spectators (Exeter Flying Post, 12 August 1824).

Stone’s celebrated encounter with William Wreford at Crediton, datable to approximately 1825, was one of the most famous single bouts in the history of Devon wrestling. An eyewitness later compared it to the Homeric struggle between Ajax and Hector: the two men grappled simultaneously, and although Wreford appeared initially to hold the advantage, before ten minutes had elapsed Stone hurled him into the air with such violence that Wreford fell heavily on his back and was temporarily incapacitated (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 7 December 1866; project archive material). A return match at South Molton ended likewise in Stone’s favour, after seventy minutes, though Stone — characteristically — offered with great magnanimity to postpone the decision to the following day, believing his opponent’s “indomitable pluck and well-known elasticity of body” might permit him to resume the struggle (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 7 December 1866).

Stone’s career reached its most public phase in 1827, when he travelled to London alongside Abraham Cann and other leading Devon wrestlers to compete in the metropolitan matches at the Eagle Tavern. He rapidly became, as the Exeter Flying Post reported, “the admiration of the ring” even before Cann had entered the lists (Egan, 1836). His friends offered to back him against Gaffney, the celebrated Irish wrestler, for £100, though Gaffney’s party declined (Egan, 1836). At the Tavistock grand match of the same year — acknowledged as the greatest ever witnessed in either Devon or Cornwall — Stone made a standard and took the third prize of four sovereigns, having thrown Milton, the best of the remaining Cornish men (Bell’s Life in London, 20 May 1827). When two wrestlers from Westmorland challenged Stone and Cann respectively at the Eagle Tavern, both northern men forfeited rather than face the Devon wrestlers on open terms (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 16 June 1827). The two men were paired as a kind of double act — appearing together fashionably dressed at Vauxhall Gardens, where “considerable curiosity was excited to get a sight of these extraordinary Devonian Wrestlers” (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 16 June 1827).

The Grand Wrestling Match at Leeds, Easter 1828, held on a stage erected at Haigh Park with prizes totalling £87, was the most ambitious tournament of the era — a deliberate attempt to pit the men of the North against those of the South and West (Leeds Intelligencer, 3 April 1828). Stone was among the Devon party. His performances were among the most spectacular of the tournament: in the triple play he threw James Cann (brother of Abraham) with a complete somersault, sending him heels over head; in the quintuple play he repeated the identical throw against Bolt (Egan, 1836). In the final, however, he was thrown by Abraham Cann after more than an hour’s struggle, in a contest where “Stone’s strength and dexterity drew forth thunders of applause” and heavy betting favoured Cann only narrowly (Egan, 1836). Stone took the second prize of £20, with Cann receiving £30.

At the St Thomas’s match near Exeter in June 1828, it was Wreford, not Stone, who won the first prize — but the final round of that match brought Woolaway and Wreford together, suggesting that Stone and Cann had already competed and been placed in earlier rounds (Egan, 1836). In a subsequent grand match for £60 at the Eagle Tavern, Stone threw the noted Cornish wrestler Perdue in approximately seven minutes using devastating shin-kicks and the outer lock, but was himself later thrown by Howard of Nottingham — described as “an all-round double heaver” — in the fourth round of their contest (project archive material).

Stone’s competitive career appears to have been relatively brief — concentrated between 1824 and 1828 — though exceptionally intense within that span (Mid-Devon History, medicalgentlemen.co.uk). He seems to have stopped wrestling after marrying Ann Gibbings of Coldridge on 1 November 1828 (Mid-Devon History, medicalgentlemen.co.uk; colebrooke.org). The couple settled initially at Furzedown Farm and later moved to Wilson Farm (now Wolfgar) in Cheriton Bishop, where they raised a growing family. By 1839 they had seven children, with another on the way (colebrooke.org).

In July 1840, Stone left Devon for Sydney, New South Wales, seeking a new life for his family. He secured a position as a station manager for Samuel Furneaux Mann, a major landowner in the New England district, supervising convict labourers at Beardy Plains (Mid-Devon History, medicalgentlemen.co.uk; colebrooke.org). On 28 July 1841, James Stone was tragically murdered at Beardy Plains. Thomas Homer, a convict labourer who had been transported from London in 1833 for pickpocketing, approached Stone’s house with a musket and shot him in the thigh. Stone died of his wounds shortly afterwards. Homer was tried, convicted of wilful murder, and executed in 1842 (Mid-Devon History, medicalgentlemen.co.uk; colebrooke.org). Stone was forty-three years old.

Back in Devon, his widow Ann managed Hooke Farm until their eldest son, James junior, took over in 1861. She later moved to Lower Chilverton Farm, where she lived with her brothers until her death on 9 July 1874 following a carriage accident (colebrooke.org). In 1861, her neighbours at Colebrooke included Abraham Cann, then aged sixty-six, at Coombehead — a final reminder of the intertwined lives of the two great Colebrooke wrestlers (Mid-Devon History, medicalgentlemen.co.uk).

Stone’s brother, Robert Francis Stone, was also a wrestler, though his career was confined to a few contests in 1828, including the bouts in London and Leeds. Robert subsequently became a grocer in Crediton High Street, a parish constable, and an assistant overseer of the Poor Law Union, serving until his death in 1871 (Mid-Devon History, medicalgentlemen.co.uk).

Literary Legacy

Stone’s life and untimely death inspired the character of James Stockbridge in Henry Kingsley’s novel The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn (1859) — a work set partly in Colebrooke (fictionalised as “Drumston”) and partly in Australia, and recognised as one of the earliest and most influential Australian novels (Encyclopædia Britannica, “The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn”; Wikipedia, “The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn”; colebrooke.org). Stockbridge, like Stone, is a Devon farmer and wrestler who emigrates to New South Wales. Henry Kingsley, brother of the more famous Charles Kingsley, had himself spent five years in Australia before returning to England in 1857 to write the novel (Australian Dictionary of Biography, as cited in Goodreads). The identification of Drumston with Colebrooke is well established in the literary scholarship, and Stone’s story — the farmer-wrestler who sought his fortune in the colonies and met a violent end — clearly provided Kingsley with the dramatic material for one of his most memorable characters.

II. Match Record

III. Summary Statistics

IV. Key Analytical Observations

• 1. Consistency at the highest level within a compressed career. Stone reached the final or penultimate rounds at every major tournament for which detailed results survive. He was never eliminated in early rounds. This consistency — across Devon, London, and Yorkshire — is unmatched by any contemporary except Cann himself, yet Stone’s entire documented competitive career lasted only four years (c. 1824–1828).
• 2. Only Cann could reliably defeat him. The sole wrestler to defeat Stone more than once in the documented record is Abraham Cann — his cousin and the acknowledged champion of Devon. The loss to Howard of Nottingham appears to be an isolated event. Stone’s 82.4% win rate in contested bouts is remarkable given the calibre of his opposition.
• 3. Signature technique: the somersault throw. A high-amplitude throwing technique — probably a variant of the fore-hip or belly-heave — is documented at least three times at Leeds alone (v. James Cann, v. Bolt, and implied v. Bell), and in the retrospective account of the Wreford bout at Crediton. Stone’s capacity to lift opponents entirely off their feet and rotate them through the air was his defining characteristic and the origin of his nickname.
• 4. Exceptional effectiveness against larger opponents. Despite standing only 5 ft 4 in., Stone defeated Lanyon (over 6 ft, 14+ st.) after sixty-five minutes, threw a gentleman’s servant described as “a man a head taller and several stone heavier,” and held Jordan (6 ft 3–4 in.) to a draw. His compact frame and low centre of gravity appear to have been tactical assets.
• 5. Kicking as an integral offensive technique. The Perdue bout confirms Stone was an effective kicker in the Devonshire tradition, deploying heavy shin-kicks to set up grappling holds — specifically, the outer lock. The graphic description of Stone’s “battering-ram” action under the knee is among the most detailed accounts of Devonshire kicking technique in the primary sources.
• 6. Sportsmanship and fair dealing. The South Molton account, in which Stone offered to postpone the decision out of respect for Wreford’s resilience, and the orderly conclusion at Leeds, where not a blow was struck nor an angry word uttered, suggest Stone was regarded as a magnanimous and honourable competitor.
• 7. Literary afterlife. Stone’s life — the Devon farmer-wrestler who emigrated to Australia and met a violent end — inspired the character of James Stockbridge in Henry Kingsley’s The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn (1859), a novel set partly in a fictionalised Colebrooke (“Drumston”) and partly in New South Wales. The identification is well attested in the local tradition and in the scholarship on Kingsley.

V. Methodological caveats

This record is necessarily incomplete. Stone almost certainly competed at numerous village revels, fairs, and local matches that attracted no surviving press coverage. The documented record is heavily weighted toward 1827–1828, when Stone’s London appearances brought him to the attention of the metropolitan sporting press. The Crediton and South Molton bouts (entries 3–4) are dated approximately (c. 1825) on the basis of internal evidence in retrospective accounts — principally the obituary of William Wreford (1866) — and should be treated with appropriate caution. Where a single tournament involved multiple bouts, each documented bout has been listed separately; undocumented single-play rounds where Stone’s individual opponents are not named have been omitted. The total of eighteen entries should therefore be understood as a minimum floor, not a comprehensive tally. Biographical data on Stone’s birth, family, marriage, emigration, and death is drawn from local heritage research (colebrooke.org; Mid-Devon History) and parish records; these sources are credible but have not in every case been independently verified against original registers.

VI. References

1. Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 20 May 1827; 27 April 1828.
2. Colebrooke village history. (2024). James Stone: The Little Elephant of Devonshire Wrestling. colebrooke.org. https://www.colebrooke.org/personalities/james-stone/
3. Colebrooke Parish History. (2020). colebrooke.org. https://www.colebrooke.org/blog/2020/06/colebrooke-parish-history/
4. Egan, P. (1836). Pierce Egan’s Book of Sports, and Mirror of Life. T. Tegg. Pp. 321–336.
5. Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 16 June 1827; 7 December 1866 [obituary of William Wreford, containing retrospective accounts of Stone/Wreford bouts].
6. Exeter Flying Post, 12 August 1824; 21 June 1827; 7 September 1826.
7. Kingsley, H. (1859). The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn. Macmillan.
8. Layers of London. (n.d.). The Eagle, Shepherdess Walk. layersoflondon.org. https://www.layersoflondon.org/map/records/the-eagle-shepherdess-walk
9. Leeds Intelligencer, 20 March 1828; 3 April 1828.
10. Mid-Devon History. (n.d.). Colebrooke wrestlers. medicalgentlemen.co.uk. https://www.medicalgentlemen.co.uk/colebrooke-wrestlers
11. Morning Chronicle, 1827 (as cited in Egan, 1836).
12. Project archive material (Devonshire Wrestling Society archive): retrospective accounts; reports on Hyde Park, Eagle Tavern, and Leeds tournaments.
13. Western Times, 3 May 1828; 27 February 1866.
14. Wikipedia. (2025). Colebrooke, Devon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colebrooke,_Devon
15. Wikipedia. (2024). Royal Grecian Theatre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Grecian_Theatre