NORTH COUNTRY SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

Wrestling and Wrestlers:

Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring;

TO WHICH IS ADDED

Notes on Bull and Badger Baiting.

BY

JACOB ROBINSON

AND

SIDNEY GILPIN.

Of all the athletic amusements of the people, Wrestling is beyond doubt thebest.—Christopher North.

LONDON: BEMROSE & SONS.
CARLISLE: THE WORDSWORTH PRESS,
75 Scotch Street.

MDCCCXCIII.

TO THE MEMORY
OF
JACOB ROBINSON,

THESE PAGES ARE
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED,
BY
HIS FELLOW-WORKER,

SIDNEY GILPIN.

[Pg v]

PREFACE.

Every dale and valley, every nook and corner, throughout Cumberland,Westmorland, and North Lancashire, at all likely to yield materials, hasbeen ransacked and laid under subservience in the compilation of thisvolume; and it now becomes the pleasant duty to record the fact, that not asingle instance of unwillingness was met with, on the part of the multitudeof narrators, who supplied the items of the various events chronicled.

The local newspaper files have materially aided our labours, in a varietyof ways. Besides supplying many passing incidents, we have found them, insome instances, exceedingly useful in the way of verifying and correctingdates.

A brief description of Swiss Wrestling was promised, for the introductorychapter, by a native of that country resident in London. This promiseyielded no fruit at the time, and it is a matter of regret that it stillremains unfulfilled.

Of Wrestling in France, we have not been able to glean much information,although enquiries were set on foot through the columns of Notes andQueries and Bell's Life in London.

For much information contained in the article[Pg vi] on Wrestling in Scotland, weare indebted to Mr. Walter Scott of Innerleithen; and for a few other itemswe have to thank Mr. Robert Murray of Hawick.

While the feats of many well known wrestlers are to be found in thesepages, the names of others equally well known are necessarily omitted; butwe may be able to publish a record of their achievements at some futuretime.

With a full consciousness of many imperfections, we now leave our work tothe judgment of those impartial readers, who may honour it with a perusal.

Local Works on the Subject.

Wrestliana: an Historical Account of Ancient andModern Wrestling. By William Litt. Whitehaven: R.Gibson, 1823.

Second Edition of the above, (reprinted from the"Whitehaven News,") by Michael and William Alsop, 1860.

Wrestliana: a Chronicle of the Cumberland andWestmorland Wrestlings in London, since the year 1824.By Walter Armstrong. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co.,1870.

Famous Athletic Contests, Ancient and Modern,compiled by Members of the Cumberland and WestmorlandWrestling Society. (Reprinted from the BestAuthorities.) London: F. A. Hancock, 1871.

Great Book of Wrestling References, giving about 2000different Prizes, from 1838 to the present day. ByIsaac Gate, Twenty-five Years Public Wrestling Judge.Carlisle: Steel Brothers, 1874.