A few months back I wangled a platform on the Cornwall Writers website, a “community of writers living in or inspired by Cornwall”. At the time I was looking for ways of promoting myself and, as this site is mainly for up-and-coming authors and writers I thought it would be a good thing for yours truly to be present there too. Check out the homepage, and you can see me, nestled in beside Winston Graham and Rosamund Pilcher, desperately hoping some of their fame and talent will rub off on me.
Of course, neither Graham nor Pilcher sought permission or had to fling themselves through several metaphorical hoops to warrant inclusion on the site. Indeed we’ll never know what they think of their inclusion; the site’s owner has arbitrarily entered their details in the hope of lending the whole affair some status and authenticity. That’s what I think anyway.
I include here some of my more important and relevant responses to the site’s “Author Interview“. The rather more twee questions I haven’t bothered with here and, at the time, only answered them under duress. For any of you looking for my motivations as a writer, especially of fiction, read on.
One deceptively simple lesson I learnt from the Cornwall Writers website is this: build your own website. Then it’s yours, and yours alone.
HHhH, by Laurent Binet. Recommended.
What are your favourite books?
My favourite novel at the moment is “HHhH” by Laurent Binet, about the assassination of the Nazi SS Chief Heydrich by Czech agents of the SOE in 1942. It’s a fascinating and ultimately harrowing tale, but it’s the questions Binet raises about the process of actually writing historical fiction that I find thought-provoking. Binet’s argument is that, to attempt to fictionally reconstruct an historical event (eg. to invent characters, dialogue, thoughts etc) is a pointless exercise that waters down the impact that particular event might have had. Throughout his book he constantly criticises other novels about Heydrich’s death to make his point. As a writer of historical fiction myself, Binet’s criticism of his own genre made me analyse what I was constructing with my own story about the Camborne Riots: should I invent characters? How can I empathise with people who lived nearly 150 years ago? Why not just write the actual facts, as Binet did with Heydrich? Binet, though, has an advantage over me. In writing about the assassination of Heydrich, all the principle characters in his story are well known and documented. In writing about the Camborne Riots, no names or identities of the most important protagonists – the rioters themselves – have come to light. So what else could I do but make some up? Just because none were ever caught, does that mean they shouldn’t be written about in some small way? Writing a story about the Camborne Riots of 1873 without the rioters would be like writing the story of Heydrich’s death without…without, well, Heydrich himself!
Another recent top read of mine is “Gallows Pole” by Benjamin Myers. This is another historical novel, telling the tale of the Cragg Vale Coiners, a ruthless band of 18th century counterfeiters from the Yorkshire Dales. Like my novel, Myers only had the bare newspaper articles and a few stray documents on which to hang his tale, and although some of the language is overwrought with gravitas, he’s managed to create an entirely plausible world in which the story takes place. Myers, of course, lives in Cragg Vale and is intimate with the area and its surrounds. Coming from Camborne and knowing something of the character and culture of the town put me at an advantage when coming to write a story so unique to the area. I could visualise the events so clearly when reading the articles on the riots because, quite simply, I’d grown up on the same streets as which they’d taken place.
Gallows Pole, by Benjamin Myers. Recommended.
What’s your favourite genre?
My favourite genre is obviously historical fiction, but that’s not to say I have issues with the form. A publisher rejected my manuscript on the grounds that my novel lacked a big historical character – in other words, it lacked a selling point. So, police brutality, mob vengeance, street violence and wanton vandalism aren’t good selling points?! I considered writing WG Grace into the cricket match that opens my story, or having Prime Minister Gladstone take the train to Camborne to view the devastation for himself, but then realised that this was an utterly fatuous exercise. A good story should stand alone, and not be propped up by cheap effects. Granted, it seems any novel featuring Hitler (or one of Henry VIII’s wives, say) will be successful, but so should stories that feature the forgotten, the maligned, and the exploited – like the Cragg Vale Coiners. Or the Camborne rioters. Especially a story about how the forgotten, maligned and exploited people get one over on their oppressors – like my novel! Just because an historical novel features a luminary from the past – “Champion”, by Stephen Deutsch, includes the German boxer Max Schmeling, for example – doesn’t necessarily make it a great read.
Champion, by Stephen Deutsch. Not recommended.
Why do you write?
Generally, I’ve always enjoyed writing, I’ve often been told I’m rather good at it. My job isn’t especially stimulating intellectually and I find writing a decent way of keeping myself fresh. More specifically, I wrote this story about the Camborne Riots of 1873 because I’ve come to believe that representations of Cornwall in the media as a tourist hot-spot marginalise areas of the county that lack traditional tourist attractions. Camborne, with few jobs, no coastline, and no sandy beach, is one of these places. If I couldn’t promote Camborne as a tourist attraction, why not promote the town for what it was once famous for, its mines? I suppose you might argue that my novel promotes Camborne as an anti-tourist attraction, but I believe Cornwall’s mining heritage is as important and as relevant as the tourism industry that props the county’s economy up today.
What inspired your story?
When growing up in Camborne, the last few mines were closing, my dad got made redundant from Compair Holmans (the manufacturer of mining equipment), and my grandad retired from working underground too. Camborne in the 1980s, it seemed to me, was closing down. I was drunk in Camborne’s Red Jackets pub (more than once) back in the 1990s and recall seeing a faux-Victorian newspaper print briefly commemorating the story of the riots tacked to one of the walls. Years later, I found a short online article about the tumult which got my interest going, and I got hold of all the contemporary newspaper articles on the subject. It was fascinating. Brawlers, boozers, corrupt policemen, imprisoned women, Methodist preachers, miners, brutal punch-ups…Camborne, at its boomtown peak, suddenly reappeared. This was Camborne, before it had closed down. It was as if, back in 1873, someone had drafted a story for me to write in the future. Why not, I said to myself, write a story about Camborne as it was, a rich, prosperous, almost lawless town, before the mines closed and tourism came along? The newspapers largely told the story from the perspective of the authorities: the rioters’ activities were generally condemned. Why not write the story from the point of view of the rioters, their lives, their concerns, their motivations? In the end I did two things. I wrote a novel, supposedly the “true” account of the riots, narrated by one of the rioters who also happened to be my great-grandfather. I also launched a website (https://camborneriot1873.com/), which is the historical side to my novel and features most of my research into the subject and analysis of the primary sources. The novel takes the suggestion of complicity, between the townspeople and rioters against the police, that was hinted at in the newspapers, and reveals that, in fact, a plot existed in the town to rid Camborne of the policemen once and for all. For a few short days, the rioters were victorious. And the entire town was involved in hiding the perpetrators’ identities.
What do you find inspiring about Cornwall?
Its history. And here I’m not talking about the various Celtic crosses, Iron Age settlements, dolmens etc, but the other relics of Cornwall’s past: the ruined engine houses, the wastelands where housing estates can’t be built on account of being too undermined, the commemorative buildings of mine dignitaries that are now blocks of flats. So you could say that the Cornish landscape inspires me: the landscape of a dead industry. Another relic that interests me is the Cornish language, and how various words have passed into common usage, even if those who use them fail to recognise them as “Cornish”. All these inspirations find their way into my novel. Cornish culture, or aspects of it, inspire me as well. The importance of sport, especially cricket and rugby, and the local rivalries they give lend to, finds its way into my story: the opening chapter features a cricket match. Cornish insularity and the Cornish people’s traditional mistrust of outsiders is also present in my writing. It’s not insignificant that Camborne’s police chief in 1873 was from the Isle of Wight – you might say that was a mark against him from the start!
Tregenna House, Camborne. Once home to Josiah Thomas, Manager of Dolcoath, the deepest and biggest mine in Britain. Now an old people’s home. Courtesy of Kresen Kernow, ref. corn05093
How do you think Cornwall has shaped your writing?
“The Camborne Riots of 1873” is a grim tale. I’ve been told as much. Yes, it’s earthy, yes, it’s funny, but there’s no getting away from the fact that this is a coarse, grimy, violent slice of life from Victorian England’s underbelly. Did I mean it to be like this? Should I have written a Cornish novel with rugged heroes, windswept heaths and swooning maidens? No, I couldn’t. The Cornwall, the Camborne, that I grew up in, back in the 1980s, could be a grim, grimy place. I suppose it boils down to the old saw: write about what you know. I knew foul language, heavy drinkers, and streetfights, so it followed that this was what I would write about. Camborne’s riots were the perfect inspiration for me to write a novel – it’s the Cornwall I know.
What do you think influenced this story?
In terms of the phonetic dialect which I use throughout, Irvine Welsh and Roddy Doyle. I’ve been told that my use of dialect can challenge the reader (much like Welsh and Doyle) but, after a chapter or so, your reading mind adjusts. The series of Flashman novels proved heavily influential too: a fictional character is inserted into real-life events, and provides the reader with his own, often caustic, observations on these events. But, whereas Flashman was (apart from a shameless cad) a supposedly educated, well-to-do Victorian celebrity, my narrator is an illiterate teenager. George MacDonald Fraser’s level of historical research for his Flashman books have always impressed me and I sought to emulate his eye for authenticity in my own work.
Recommended.
Recommended.
Recommended.
If you would like to discover more about my novel, see my recent post, or contact me!
The trouble about being a Rugby selector is that you can never be right. ~ Howard Marshall (Oxford University and Harlequins), 19391
Cornwall’s rugby history
Regular readers of my blog will be aware that Nick Serpell (Hellfire Awaits: 150 Years of Redruth RFC) and myself are writing a history of Cornish rugby. Hitting the stands in late 2027, it will be the first book-length study of Cornwall’s national sport, from the 1870s to the present.2
My recent rugby posts, on the Cornishmen who switched codes from amateur rugby union to professional league, and the Camborne School of Mines players who perished in World War One, are related to the forthcoming publication and complement it.3 So, when I eventually say in the book that 24 players joined the rugby league, or that the School of Mines RFC lost more members in the war than any other Cornish club, I’ll have the groundwork – the posts – to back these assertions up.
The piece you are about to read has been developed with a similar purpose in mind. In the book, I will probably say something like the following:
Between 1919 and 1939, although eight Cornish-born players were awarded England trials, and a ninth trialist had made Cornwall their home, not one became a full international. We have to ask why.
I can then refer back to this post, and you will know that the total of nine trialists is a fact, and that I’m not just making it all up.
This number is important for two reasons. Firstly, between Redruth’s Bert Solomon in 1910 and Falmouth’s Jim George in 1947, not one single Cornishman represented England. In terms of international recognition, that’s an incredibly long period, even if we take into account two world wars.
Secondly, three players who represented Cornwall on the pitch did in fact play for England between the wars. These men are however only ‘Cornish’ in the broadest possible sense. They might have played rugby for Cornwall, yet none ever represented a Cornish club, nor were born on the right side of the Tamar.4
Naval men Ernie Gardner, Fred Gilbert and Charles Webb all played for Devonport Services RFC. Gardner hailed from Cardiff, and Gilbert and Webb were both born in Plymouth. The trio quite possibly qualified for Cornwall through residency, yet Webb and Gardner also played for Devon.5
Why, then, did Gardner, Gilbert and Webb represent England, yet eight Cornishmen (and one club-playing resident) did not? Why were so many fine Cornish players overlooked by the RFU’s selection committee in those years?
Mine and Nick’s book seeks to answer these questions; this post doesn’t. Here we will examine the lives and careers of nine men who, even now, many people recall as being good enough to merit international recognition.
Honourable mentions
Randfontein United RFC, 1909. Insets: R. Eathorne (Redruth), R. Difford (W. Province), J. Gough (Transvaal). Standing: A. Edwards (Camborne), W. Varker (St Agnes), W. Walker (Transvaal), W. Hearne (Transvaal), T. Richards (Camborne), Alfred Rodda (Camborne), E. Whelan (Transvaal), W. Beckerleg (Camborne), W. Pearce (Redruth), A. Tippet (Transvaal), A. Lithgow (Transvaal). Seated: J. Andrews (Illogan), C. Rotham (Transvaal), W. Pearce (Newlyn), C. Ferguson (Pres., Transvaal), Richard Davey (Capt., Redruth), B. Hambridge (Transvaal), A. Hosking (Pendeen). Ground: B. Thomas (Camborne), Ferguson jnr., T. Moll (W. Province). Davey was a member of Cornwall’s 1908 Championship XV6
Although they appeared in trial matches before the war, two men are worthy of inclusion here. Camborne RFC’s Alfred Rodda (1881-1926), a miner, was the first Cornishman to be awarded a trial cap. He appeared in two such matches before emigrating to South Africa with 15 others in 1902. He married in Johannesburg in 1905 and appeared for several rugby teams, including Randfontein.
Fred’s life was marred by tragedy. His wife and three young children drowned when their ship, the Galway Castle, was sunk by U-boats in 1918. Fred was only 45 when he died of phthisis.7
Dick Jackett on the water. Image courtesy Mr John Jackett, Falmouth
Dick Jackett (1881-1960) is a Falmouth and Cornwall rugby legend. Such was the wealth of sporting talent in his family, however, that he wasn’t even the best player in the Jackett household. That title must go to his older brother, John, but Dick was no slouch.8
Dick represented Cornwall well into his 40s, his tally of 70 caps being a record on his retirement. Even now, only Stack Stevens, Peter Hendy, Bonzo Johns and Tony Cook have played more matches.9
He was a key member of the monster pack that helped Cornwall win the County Championship in 1908, and an Olympic silver medal that same year. Though recalled most vividly by Falmouth RFC, Dick was also a high-profile signing for Redruth, and latterly followed his brother to Leicester, in the days when such a move was by invitation only.
Yet Dick never played for England. From 1904 to 1911, he played in five trial matches and had to pull out of a sixth. Had he been successful in 1905, he would have debuted alongside brother John against New Zealand. A nod in 1906 would have seen Dick take the field against the Springboks. Even in 1910 the London ‘papers still rated him ‘one of the best forwards in the West’, whose claims for inclusion were ‘hotly supported’ by many pundits.10
But it was not to be.11 On his death in 1960, one of Cornwall’s strongest, toughest forwards of all time was described as:
the county’s unluckiest player.
West Briton, 28 Jul 1960. Page 14
As we shall see, several more can lay claim to that unfortunate accolade.
Between England’s first international match in 1871 and the RFU’s long-delayed decision to turn the game professional in 1995, only four miners were ever capped.13
Ernest Rodda, the son of a grocer from Crowan, wasn’t one of them.
For the 1920 Five Nations championship, England’s dream XV was to materialise after three trial matches. A nominal international team would be pitted against ‘North’ and ‘South’ XVs, leading to a final game against ‘The Rest’. Commentators and armchair selectors prepared themselves:
Theoretically it is a good idea, for in the exhaustive process of selection and alteration the very best side of all should be come upon. But unfortunately things do not work out so smoothly or sequentially.
‘Astral’, Daily News, 17 Dec 1919. Page nine
Ernest, with a burgeoning reputation in the West Country (and South Africa, where he had worked) as a powerful forward, was picked for the South XV which ran in four first-half tries against England at Twickenham on 20 December 1919, eventually winning 19-14. This was not the ‘smooth, sequential’ process the selectors had been hoping for, but it generated plenty of column inches.14
Ernest was the only Cornishman selected for the South, though he had men from Gloucester, Plymouth and Newton Abbot for company. The other players were all from London clubs or the principal universities. Nonetheless, he must have shone, for the selectors had another look at him for the Rest in the final trial on 3 January 1920. This time though the England XV won convincingly 30-16, solving much selectorial consternation and denying many journalists the opportunity to further sharpen their pencils.15
Ernest didn’t hang around for the next season’s trials. By late January or early February 1920, he had signed professional terms for the northern union’s Rochdale Hornets. Indeed, northern scouts were probably present at the trial matches, on the alert for burly working class lads willing to back their own talent.16
Ernest took the gamble, but it didn’t pay off. A leg injury kept him out of the Rochdale team that won the 1922 Challenge Cup, though another Cornishman, Redruth’s Tommy Harris, played in the final. In fact the injury was so bad that Ernest’s leg had to be amputated. He entered the licensing trade, managing Rochdale’s Eagle Hotel. Ernest died in 1936, with the Cornwall RFU sending condolences to his widow.17
Herbert Wakeham (1897-1963), Camborne RFC
Three trials and 23 caps for Cornwall
Herbert Wakeham in 1925. Image courtesy Leslie Fiedler
The Five Nations championship was, in these years, generally the only opportunity to play, or watch, international rugby. Additionally, from 1932 to 1939, the Five Nations in fact reverted to the Home Nations: France, with accusations of professionalism in their game, had been expelled, meaning even less fixtures. The now-annual Autumn Nations Series did not exist. New Zealand only visited in 1924/25 and 1935/36, with their Māori side coming over in 1926/27. The New South Wales Waratahs toured in 1927/28. South Africa visited in 1931/32. There was no televised rugby, with the BBC in its infancy.
Without a recognised league system, outside of the Five/Home Nations the trial matches by definition and intention had to feature the best rugby in the land. Teams were selected from key domestic and County Championship matches. For example, in 1925 a selector watched Devon trample all over Cornwall to win 6-0 in Redruth, and promptly awarded four Devon forwards a trial. When Harlequins hosted the Army in 1927, the selectors requested a Yorkshire wing play for the latter, in order that they might have a better look at him.18
Although the final trial was always held at Twickenham, the first two varied in location. If you couldn’t make an international, a trial in your locale was often the next best thing. When the South played England at Bristol in 1921, a crowd of 15,000 saw the latter win 29-14. Another 15,000 turned up for a trial at Birkenhead in 1923. Reports of trial matches even began to be broadcast over the wireless. If you owned a radio in London in late 1928, you could be treated to a 15-minute report of the trial in Newcastle.19
Trial matches were prestigious events, with those selected to represent the various XVs either already full internationals or potentially on their way to becoming one. Such occasions were marked with the presentation of a trial cap. Here’s a couple of Herbert Wakeham’s:
From left: a trial cap, a Camborne RFC 1919/20 season cap (when green and not cherry and white was the colour of choice), a Cornwall 1919/20 cap, and a trial cap from 1920, hence ‘XX’. Courtesy Pamela Best
Herbert was a rock-drill salesman for the Camborne firm Climax, and had rapidly gained a reputation as a ‘fast and clever’ forward in the immediate post-war era.20
That said, his selection for the South at Leicester in December 1920 was far from seamless. Trial XVs, often announced weeks in advance of the actual fixture, were regularly altered on account of injuries or work commitments. Herbert, not named in the original side, was such a last-minute call-up the West Briton thought he was in the England XV. One national ‘paper omitted his inclusion altogether on the day of the match, but the Daily Express got it right.21
Being thrust into an unfamiliar team chock-full of university dons, medical students and big club players would have fazed many, but not Herbert. His experience as a travelling salesman may have helped, but Herbert definitely did the talking on the pitch. Though an 18,000 crowd watched England hammer the South 31-8, Herbert did enough to merit selection for the Rest at Twickenham in the final trial.
Playing opposite him were two future England greats, Ronald Cove-Smith and Wavell Wakefield, and Herbert can’t have impressed as much on this occasion. England went on to win the 1921 Grand Slam.22
At this time he was also offered a northern union contract, but Herbert had a steady enough job to allow him to say no. In late 1921 Climax sent him to South Africa; he only returned in 1924. Luckily for Herbert, he was able to keep his rugby hand in by playing for Transvaal’s Pirates RFC.
Such form meant Herbert could be selected for Cornwall against the 1924/25 ‘Invincible’ All Blacks at Camborne RFC. Though he had to leave the pitch towards the end of the game with an injury and New Zealand won emphatically 29-0, once more Herbert was in the mix for higher honours.
Picked to play alongside Wavell Wakefield for the South against the North, this was Herbert’s big chance. Wakefield had already led England to two Grand Slams and was revolutionising the game, but Herbert got not further.23
In 1927 Herbert sailed once more, this time for Malaya. A bout of malaria contracted while he was overseas put an end to his rugby career. Remembered on his death as a ‘tower of strength’ for any XV he represented, even now Camborne RFC recall Herbert Wakeham as one of their greatest players.24
William H Taylor (1891-1963), Hayle RFC and Guy’s Hospital
One trial and ten caps for Cornwall
The Guy’s Hospital XV that won the Inter-Hospitals Cup in 1922. William Taylor stands fourth from left25
A forward from Hayle Towans, William Taylor first played for Cornwall before the war. By 1921 he was studying dentistry at, and playing rugby for, Guy’s Hospital, London.
Though nowadays Guy’s have joined forces with two other old hospital teams and lurk in the Kent Metropolitan leagues, by 1922 they could already boast 15 England internationals. They would win the annual Inter-Hospital Cup for fun and trial matches regularly featured their players. When Ernest Rodda trialled for the South in December 1919, two Guy’s players were in his XV – and one in the England side. Perhaps unsurprisingly, William was picked for the South XV to meet England at Devonport on 16 December 1922.26
Starting opposite William in England’s pack was Ernie Gardner, and he had Fred Gilbert with him in the South XV. As both trial XVs had been named nearly two weeks before the actual fixture, the South still had two spots in the pack to fill. A selector was duly dispatched to Camborne, having been briefed to find the required men from the Cornwall-Gloucestershire game on 9 December.
The Press reckoned that Cornwall, with ‘several good players in the front rank’, had three likely lads vying for the two vacancies. These were Redruth’s James Richards, who would later lead Cornwall against the All Blacks, and Camborne’s Bill Biddick and Richard Selwood.27
Jack Richards flanked by the opposition in 1924…
…and Bill Biddick about to take the field in the 1928 County Championship semi-final versus Middlesex28
Cornwall went down 9-7. Nobody on the losing team got the nod, but fate conspired at the last minute. An injury to a South forward days before the match gave someone a chance. Question was, who?29
Richard in 1923, sporting a trial cap similar to Herbert Wakeham’s. Image courtesy Kelly Hamblin
The 1911 census tells us that Camborne lad Richard was already a miner at the tender age of 14. His kid brother, Foster Selwood, would go on to win 11 Cornwall caps and play in the 1928 County Championship final defeat to Yorkshire at Bradford.
Back in 1922, Richard may not have been under any illusions as to his chances of further trial opportunities. As a second- or even third-choice pick, he would have had to put in a barnstorming performance to get the selectors’ juices flowing.
In a dour match at Devonport, England overcame the South pretty easily. Richard got no mention in the reports, and neither did William Taylor. This match, however, is the only occasion between 1919 and 1939 that four Cornwall players appeared together in a trial. The Devonport duo of Ernie Gardner and Fred Gilbert (aged 39) would go on to represent England in their 1923 Grand Slam season.31
Leonard Hammer (1895-1979), Camborne RFC and Birmingham
One trial and 13 caps for Cornwall; also represented the North Midlands
From the Birmingham Daily Gazette, 14 Oct 1924. Page seven
It’s hard to believe the cherubic youth pictured below in 1920 was not only a Cornwall player but a Western Front veteran:
Courtesy Pamela Best
But Leonard Hammer was. An office clerk at one of Camborne’s major engineering concerns (whether Holmans or Climax, the 1921 census is unclear), he formed a deadly partnership in the centre for Camborne with Phil Collins. Leonard was more the speed and the flair, Phil the brutal defensive force.
The 1922/23 season was Leonard’s peak, at least in Cornwall. Given the Camborne captaincy, he ran in 24 tries, at the time a club record. He also attracted the eye of the northern union outfit Halifax, who were so bowled over by his talent they practically handed him a blank cheque. Like Herbert Wakeham, his white-collar job and decent wage meant Leonard could politely decline.
A rather more imposing mien in 1923. Courtesy Kelly Hamblin
Although as stated there was no league structure, the national ‘papers strived to give their readers a sense of the major clubs’ form, and Camborne’s numbers under Hammer began to stack up. In March 1923 it was noted that the club had won 32 of 24 fixtures and racked up 470 points against such XVs as Llanelli, St Bart’s Hospital, Plymouth Albion, Devonport Services and Bath. Only one other team in the land, Nuneaton, could boast better stats. Surely this guy Hammer was worth a look?32
In preparation for the 1924 Five Nations, England altered their trial format, reviving a system not seen since before the war. First, the North would play the South, then the Probables would play the Possibles, and finally the Rest would play England. Hammer got the nod for the South.33
At Birkenhead on 1 December, the North defeated the South 24-13. The South’s back division, featuring Hammer, was panned by the critics as being:
appallingly experimental …
Gloucester Citizen, 8 Dec 1923. Page seven
It was Leonard’s first and last chance. While England took the 1924 Grand Slam, he accepted a job with a Birmingham firm and joined the city’s rugby club. Leonard took his Cornish form with him and rapidly became a popular player, representing the North Midlands against the touring New Zealanders in October 1924. Needless to say, the latter won easily by 40 points to three.34
But Leonard never forgot his roots. On a visit to Camborne in 1949, he was invited to kick off the Feast Monday match against Redruth, being described as a ‘star’ of yesteryear.35
Roy Jennings (1905-1968), Redruth RFC
Five trials and 61 caps for Cornwall
Redruth’s brylcreem boy. The Tatler, 16 Nov 1938. Page 314
As Howard Marshall wrote in 1939, a rugby selector could never be right. In the case of Roy Jennings, they got it very wrong.
Of the 57 inter-war trials, only two were held in Cornwall. The first – indeed the first in Cornwall ever – was a Probables-Possibles match that took place at Camborne on Saturday, 15 December 1928. This trial, coming after the Cornish XV had reached the County Championship final in March of that year, put Cornish rugby back on the map.36
Two of Cornwall’s ‘army’ of fans doing what was necessary at Bradford in 1928. From the Western Morning News, 12 Mar 1928. Page ten
As you can probably imagine, Camborne RFC pulled out all the stops, with the town also rolling out several metaphorical red carpets. As the game was likely to finish around 4 p.m., Camborne’s hostelries were granted permission to open at that hour and not the customary, later time of 5.30 p.m. (Beacon’s, Troon’s and Barripper’s pubs had no such luck.) All Cornish rugby that Saturday was suspended. Many players joined the 8,000 spectators at the Recreation Ground for what was billed as the ‘cream’ of English rugby.37
The Possibles bested the Probables 19-16, and such was the level of upcountry rugby on display that:
if the numerous Cornish players who witnessed the play took full note of what was served up, and attempt to play it in their future matches, then Rugby in Cornwall should have a great uplift.
St. Austell Gazette and Cornwall County News, 19 Dec 1928. Page seven
All the forwards had allotted scrummaging positions; Cornish packs still adhered to the outmoded ‘first up, first down’ approach. Shortened lineouts were non-existent, making play more open and faster. Always the objective was to move the ball wide, quickly, and in this respect the threequarters on show gained much admiration.
There was only one sour note. No Cornishman had been given the opportunity to show his mettle. Prior to the announcement of the XVs, two locals had received hints to make themselves ready.
One was Camborne’s Bill Biddick. Wavell Wakefield, an England skipper so hard he believed breaking an opponent’s ribs was part of the game, and whose (unsuccessful) tactics against the 1924/25 All Blacks was to systematically beat the shit out of them, rated Biddick the toughest man he ever faced. Yet he was never selected for a trial.38
The other was Redruth’s centre Roy Jennings, who instead spent the match running touch. He was better than that, and perhaps the opportunity to see modern play close up made him so.
The son of a nonconformist saddler who himself became a hotelier, Roy Jennings is an undisputed Redruth and Cornwall rugby legend. Nick Serpell is of the opinion that:
The legend of Bert Solomon can sometimes overshadow the achievements of later players in the history of the club, but there is a case for suggesting that the contribution of Roy Jennings was as great, if not greater, than that of Solomon.
Hellfire Awaits: 150 Years of Redruth RFC. Pitch Publishing, 2025. Page 190
Roy regularly racked up a hundred points a season, and played at the top of his game well into his (and the decade’s) late thirties. Renowned for his speed, vision, versatility, finishing and toughness (he once finished a match minus two teeth and a broken nose), Roy was a vital part of the immensely successful Redruth side of the 1930s.
The embodiment of Cornish rugby. From the Western Morning News, 19 Oct 1938. Page 12
The Daily Express‘s regular ‘Rugby Club Records’ table was a handy barometer of leading teams’ form in these years. Indeed, to be included in its alphabetical list was often an indication that your side mattered nationally. In December 1934 Cornwall’s two biggest clubs were in the mix. Camborne were between Burton and Cambridge University, while Pontypridd and Richmond flanked Redruth.39
As road and transport conditions improved, the Cornish kingpin XVs could more frequently visit, and host, notable clubs from up the line. In the 1932/33 season Redruth played Bath, Coventry, Cardiff and London’s St Bart’s Hospital, losing only to the Somerset club.
Therefore, Cornish county and club rugby’s increased visibility in the late 1920s and early 1930s meant Roy didn’t drop off the selectors’ radar. He was picked for the 1929/30 season’s opening trial at Northampton. In Cornwall, they believed it was his just desserts:
A deserving honour … unquestionably one of the finest three-quarters in the West of England …
West Briton, 5 Dec 1929. Page three
The old Redruth international and British Lion, James ‘Maffer’ Davey, rated him second only to Bert Solomon, and second to nobody currently playing. Roy’s XV lost, but he scored a try and kicked two conversions. It was more than enough.40
Roy proceeded to represent the Possibles at Gloucester on 21 December 1929. Again, his XV narrowly lost. Roy’s attacking play was criticised in the Western Daily Press as being inferior to his Bristolian partner in the centre, but as the Bristol-produced Press would have probably said their man was better if he hadn’t played at all, we can safely discredit this.41
It was the opinion of the selectors that mattered, and they put Roy in for the Rest at Twickenham’s final trial.
England won 29-7, but Roy buried a massive penalty and was rated ‘the best’ of the Rest’s back line. But was his best in a team that shipped six tries going to get him through the door?42
It wasn’t. The RFU handed out nine new caps, their decision to blood youth justified in the Five Nations opener at Cardiff with an 11-3 win over Wales. These appearances in three consecutive trials allied to a selectorial policy of rebuilding would be Roy’s biggest chance.43
His reputation as the great nearly-man of English rugby grew, and not just with sympathetic Cornish commentators. It was a status reinforced by his inclusion in the 1930 British Lions squad that toured Australia and New Zealand. Operating mainly as a wing, Roy ran in 12 tries, including a hat-trick, but a chipped shoulder-blade meant he missed out on the Tests.44
The 1930 British Lions on deck with the ship’s cat. Roy, one of the 160-odd uncapped players to become a Lion, has his legs crossed far right45
Roy got another shot. In November 1931 he skippered the Cornwall XV that took a significant win over Devon, then starred at full-back for the Cornwall and Devon side that held, with only 14 men, the touring Springboks to a 3-3 draw later that month. It put him back in the hunt. (With him in both teams were Charles Webb and Cecil Greenwood-Penny, both of whom feature again.)46
The 1931/32 trials had an odd sequence. With France exiled, the 1932 competition would be a Home Nations tournament, yet England were scheduled to meet South Africa on 2 January. The RFU decided to schedule two trials beforehand, and a third after the international matches had begun. The experiment was much-maligned and not repeated.
For Roy, it meant having the less arduous path of only two trials to shine in. He represented the South against the North, and was then invited to represent England – at 15 – against the Rest at Twickenham. Roy was in the box seat.
England lost. Roy missed a kick, and received an injury early in the game. It was his last trial.47
Disbelief bordering on incredulity at his exclusion grew as the seasons went on. In 1933 the RFU cut its nose off to spite its face by handing their number one full-back, Bristol’s Tom Brown, a life ban for speaking to a rugby league club. England could do worse, reckoned both the Daily Mirror and the Daily News, than to give Roy Jennings – lest we forget, a centre by trade – his chance.48
It never happened. In 1938, with Roy notching up his 60th cap for Cornwall, the question was still asked:
the only wonder is that he has not been capped for England … there are undoubtedly several full backs who have been more fortunate and less accomplished.
The Tatler, 19 Jan 1938. Page 124
Redruth’s glamourous brylcreem boy continued to delight his home fans, giving them something to cheer about during the tough years of the 1930s. On his death in 1968, he was judged to be the best player never to get an England cap. Not just the best Cornish player, but the best period. Why this was so has never been satisfactorily answered.49
Cecil Greenwood-Penny (1911-1970), Penzance RFC and Camborne School of Mines
One trial and nine caps for Cornwall
Penzance RFC, 1932. Cecil Greenwood-Penny stands second from right50
Cornwall and Devon’s performance against the 1931 Springboks raised a lot of eyebrows in the right places. The South team that met the North shortly after that fixture featured seven members of that side. The three Cornwall players were Roy Jennings, Navy marine Charles Webb (who went on to make 12 England appearances), and forward Cecil Greenwood-Penny. He was described as a:
finely-built young Camborne School of Mines player … [who] was one of the most prominent of the combined counties’ pack against the South Africans …
Western Morning News, 24 Nov 1931. Page 12
Then as now, any man who could front up to a Springbok pack attracted attention. However it was Cecil’s only trial.
The son of a Devon medical practitioner, Cecil was born in Marazion and played his first rugby for Penzance. He attended Camborne School of Mines from 1929 to 1932, winning his trial cap whilst a mining student. After completing his studies, he returned to Penzance.
Cecil’s engineering career meant his time on a rugby pitch was to be truncated. He appears to have had various postings in Kenya and Dutch Guiana, and rose to the rank of lieutenant in World War Two. He died in Malawi in 1970.51
Harry Faviell (1916-1977), Harlequins and Redruth RFC
Two trials and five caps for Cornwall; also represented the Eastern Counties
Harry about to score for Harlequins against Oxford University at Twickenham in 1934. From The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 23 Nov 1934. Page 384
The second trial game to be held in Cornwall was to be hosted by Falmouth RFC in December 1933. Roy Jennings and Camborne’s Phil Collins (whose son John would go all the way) were called up as reserves, but neither got on the pitch.52 In fact, nobody got on the pitch: a hard frost meant the fixture was cancelled. It was rescheduled for later that month, but at Twickenham. The future RFU President Percy Holman took pains to point out that:
the difficulties of Christmas travel probably had a good deal to do with the decision not to hold the match so far away from the centres as Falmouth.
Cornishman, 21 Dec 1933. Page eight
I’m sure all the Cornish rugby fans left seeking refunds for their rail tickets to the original match were delighted.
Falmouth did get their trial a year later. Yet again, no Cornishmen were selected. Three were on standby, to be left unused: the hosting club’s Cliff Roberts, Len Roberts (Redruth) and F J Dale (St Ives). Nevertheless, 5,000 spectators were finally treated to a real spectacle of running rugby, as the Possibles and Probables tied at 12-all.53
The next year, 1935, Henry Louis Vere Faviell joined Redruth from Harlequins, but don’t let his name, or the name of his original club fool you into making assumptions about his background. In fact Harry had been born in Barnstaple, and came to Cornwall in order to begin an apprenticeship at Holmans.54
What is not in any doubt is Harry’s rugby pedigree. A wing of uncanny speed and finishing ability, before crossing the Tamar he had played for the Eastern Counties and already had an international trial match. One of his final acts before leaving London was to turn out for the Barbarians.55
He was probably Roy Jennings’ dream wing – and Roy was Harry’s dream centre. Together for Redruth they were truly lethal. In Harry’s first season for the club, 1935/36, he chalked up an amazing 53 tries. His new team ran up 447 points against all Cornish opposition, and conceded a paltry 27.56
Harry shreds Camborne in 1936. From: Nick Serpell, Hellfire Awaits, 2025
What havoc they might have wrought together for England is sadly unknowable. Harry had one more trial, at Bristol in 1936, but was on the receiving end of the one thing every winger hates. The lack of opportunity to show off:
The pity was that Faviell got no chances to show his pace.
Daily Mirror, 21 Dec 1936. Page 27
Harry made Cornwall his home. A Redruth teammate, Harold Curnow (himself a trial reservist in 1937) taught him Cornish wrestling, though several Redruth players of the time, including Roy Jennings, could have showed him how to make a clean back: Harry and a number of the Redruth XV took part in a tournament at Pool in 1937. But speed in all its myriad forms was always his thing. He was fined for being caught flooring his roadster over the limit in 1938.57
A lieutenant in the war, Harry was made MD of Holmans’ West African operation in 1963, covering Ghana, Nairobi and Sierra Leone. Yet he died back in Devon.58
Frank Maurice Noel Heath (1915-1993), Penzance RFC and Cambridge University
Harry Faviell’s final trial in 1936 featured seven Varsity players, which at the time came as no surprise:
the high standard of Varsity Rugby this season receives a just reward.
Daily Mirror, 10 Dec 1936. Page 30
One university man in the pack was Frank Heath. Born at Lamorna, his father Frank Snr was a painter of the Newlyn School, popularly known as the ‘sunshine artist’. Frank Jnr was probably one of those demon schoolboy sportsmen who are good at everything. Like another trialist, Cecil Greenwood-Penny, Frank learnt his rugby at St Erbyn’s School, Penzance. Later he captained Clifton College at both cricket and rugby, turning out for Penzance in the latter discipline when home on holiday. Moving up to Caius College, Cambridge he became Cornwall’s first rugby blue since before the war.60
Frank made it through to the final trial for the Rest at Twickenham in January 1937. West Cornwall held its breath.61
England won, 16-0. The game was so poor the selectors had to postpone picking the full England XV. Both sets of forwards were described as ‘slovenly’.62
Frank Heath was Cornwall’s last unsuccessful trialist before the war. Redruth’s Les Semmens was to continue this unfortunate pattern in 1948.63
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The two previous histories are: Pelmear, K. Rugby in the Duchy: An Official History of the Great Game in Cornwall. CRFU, 1960. Salmon, T. The First Hundred Years: The Story of Rugby Football in Cornwall. CRFU, 1983.
London Daily Chronicle, 20 Dec 1910. Page nine. Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 8 Jan 1911. Page 27.
London Daily Chronicle, 14 Nov 1904. Page nine. 16 Nov 1906. Page 11. 26 Nov 1906. Page seven. Cornish Telegraph, 30 Nov 1905. Page six. Daily Mirror, 28 Nov 1911. Page 14. The Morning Post, 29 Nov 1911. Page four. Daily Express, 30 Nov 1911. Page eight.
Appearances for Cornwall are taken from Tom Salmon’s The First Hundred Years: The Story of Rugby Football in Cornwall, CRFU, 1983.
Collins, T. A Social History of English Rugby Union. Routledge, 2009. Page 217.
Daily News, 22 Dec 1919. Page nine.
Daily News, 11 Dec 1919. Page two. 3 Jan 1920. Page seven. Pall Mall Gazette, 3 Jan 1920. Page 12.
Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 7 Dec 1925. Page six. Athletic News, 31 Jan 1927. Page four.
The Weekly Dispatch, 18 Dec 1921. Page 11. Gloucester Citizen, 1 Dec 1923. Page ten. Western Daily Press, 1 Dec 1928. Page ten.
West Briton, 16 Dec 1920. Page three.
London Daily Chronicle, 9 Dec 1920. Page 12. West Briton, 16 Dec 1920. Page three. Daily Herald, 18 Dec 1920. Page eight. Daily Express, 18 Dec 1920. Page eight.
Weekly Dispatch, 19 Dec 1920. Page ten. 2 Jan 1921. Page ten.
St. Austell Gazette and Cornwall County News, 21 Dec 1927. Page eight.
St. Austell Gazette and Cornwall County News, 19 Dec 1928. Page seven. Also the Western Morning News, 12 Dec 1928. Page four.
Collins, T. A Social History of English Rugby Union. Routledge, 2009. Pages 72-4. West Briton, 5 Jan 1984. Page six.
Daily Express, 28 Dec 1934. Page 12.
Western Morning News, 3 Dec 1929. Page six. Daily News, 4 Dec 1929. Page 15. West Briton, 5 Dec 1929. Page three. Western Daily Press, 9 Dec 1929. Page four.
St. Austell Gazette and Cornwall County News, 11 Nov 1931. Page seven. Salmon, T. The First Hundred Years: The Story of Rugby Football in Cornwall. CRFU, 1983. Page 131.
Western Morning News, 24 Nov 1931. Page 12. 10 Dec 1931. Page 11. 1 Jan 1932. Page three. Western Daily Press, 21 Dec 1931. Page two. Daily Express, 16 Feb 1932. Page 12. Sunday Mirror, 28 Feb 1932. Page 26.
Daily Mirror, 11 Nov 1933. Page 24. Daily News, 14 Nov 1933. Page 14. Collins, T. A Social History of English Rugby Union. Routledge, 2009. Page 118.
Bristol Evening Post, Oct 12 1968. Page eight. See also: Serpell, N. Hellfire Awaits: 150 Years of Redruth RFC. Pitch Publishing, 2025. Pages 172-207 and 261.
The Cornishman, 12 Nov 1936. Page three. See also: https://www.frankheath.com/gallery/6/1920-1936. Pelmear, K. Rugby in the Duchy: An Official History of the Great Game in Cornwall. CRFU, 1960. Page 21.
The Cornishman, 24 Dec 1936. Page five.
Weekly Dispatch, 3 Jan 1937. Page 21.
St. Austell Gazette and Cornwall County News, 17 Nov 1948. Page two.
With that serious matter attended to, the County Rugby Championship was revived in season 1919–20. ~ Kenneth Pelmear, Rugby in the Duchy, CRFU, 1960
Lest we forget
Nick Serpell (Hellfire Awaits: 150 Years of Redruth RFC) and myself are currently writing the first book-length history of Cornish rugby, to be published in late 2027. This will build on two previous histories, shatter a few comfortable myths and bring the story of Cornwall’s national sport right up to the present.1 It will also seek to reveal several unheard or forgotten aspects of our winter game.
A previously unexamined facet of Cornish rugby concerns the game during World War One. The long-held assumption is that, as no official rugby was played, then nothing rugby-related can have happened. The years from 1914 to 1918 can be glibly summarised in a neat sentence, like the quote that opened this post. And why not? In August 1914 the CRFU resolved to let the Cornish XVs honour their fixtures as much as possible, but this quickly proved untenable, such was the rush to join up. One by one, the clubs abandoned their matches. So inactive was Cornwall’s rugby calendar that the CRFU didn’t reconvene until January 1919.2
That’s one way of looking at it.
Another way is to appreciate that World War One heralded what one historian has accurately called the age of catastrophe.3 Socially, economically and politically, the nineteenth century, its entire structure of feeling, had not so much been ended as destroyed. The liberal bourgeois democracies of the late 1800s, their empires and capitalist economies, lay shattered. In their place on the world stage came revolutionaries, communists, socialists, Bolsheviks, anarchists, fascists and Nazis. Meanwhile, 20 million people had been either killed or wounded.
Additionally, rugby union’s governing body, the RFU, allied itself to the war effort like no other sport.4 As one historian has stated:
Rugby union saw itself as the very embodiment of the public school imperial ideal: masculine, militaristic and patriotic.
Collins, T. A Social History of English Rugby Union. Routledge, 2009. Page 49
The harrowing results of this campaign and the mindset that allowed it to happen are well documented. Of the England XV that beat Scotland to win the Grand Slam in March 1914, six were killed in action. (Scotland lost six of their team too.) Twenty-seven England internationals died during the war.
But it doesn’t stop there. Rosslyn Park RFC lost 109 of its 350 members who served. Of the 30 who played in the 1912 Varsity Match, 13 were to die. Studies of numerous team photographs taken in late 1913 or early 1914 have led some to conclude that the death rate for rugby players was around a horrifying 30 per cent. That’s four to five players for every XV.5 The RFU thought this was glorious. As the former international (and future RFU president) Bob Oakes put it:
We now know how splendidly the Rugby footballer, in common with every British soldier, fought – aye, and how magnificently he died!
From: Collins, T. A Social History of English Rugby Union. Routledge, 2009. Page 62
If ever you’re walking to Northampton RFC’s stadium at Franklin Gardens from the carpark at Sixfields, you’ll probably find yourself strolling along Edgar Mobbs Way. Mobbs, a wing for Northampton and England, was at first judged too old to enlist and formed his own battalion of fellow sportsmen. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was killed at the battle of Passchendaele in 1917.
Such was the level of warlike dedication the RFU demanded of its players – and the price they paid. His sacrifice is also commemorated on the trophy which shares its name with the Australian international Mark Ella.6
We can conclude then that the relationship between rugby and war is worthy of study. Mine and Nick’s forthcoming book, amongst many other things, considers this relationship as it applies to Cornwall, and will not be discussed here. What this post seeks to do is remember as best we can a group of men whose Cornish rugby club saw more players killed in the war than any other. This post also tries to demonstrate just why this was so. The club in question is the Camborne School of Mines RFC.
CSM
The only remaining building of the original Camborne School of Mines. The school relocated to Pool before finally becoming part of the University of Exeter at Penryn Campus in 2005. Image copyright Ashley Dace
With its rigorous and lengthy courses, steep fees and qualifications respected worldwide, the Camborne School of Mines was a university in all but name. Advertisements in internationally circulated journals ensured entrants were not just from Britain, but from around the world. In their specialist field, the Camborne school was second only to the Royal School of Mines in South Kensington. Young men, mainly from middle class, public school backgrounds took Camborne and Cornwall to as many distant locations as the Cousin Jacks and Cousin Jennies did.7
The school’s rugby club, formed in 1896, was a force to be reckoned with in this period. By 1914, four of its students were England internationals. Two alumni were in the victorious 1908 Cornwall XV.8
In fact, it was hard to tell which team in Camborne – Camborne RFC, or Camborne School of Mines RFC – held ascendancy. Camborne RFC didn’t even compete in the 1896/97 season, and spent that playing year in abeyance. Journalists began to write of the ‘Camborne Students’ and ‘Camborne Town’ in match reports, thus giving the latter club its nickname. C’mon Town…9
On the declaration of war the students flocked to the colours. By Christmas 1914, 47 of them (and three of their teachers) were in the services, 23 of whom had gained commissions. Only two new students enrolled in September 1915.10 The roll of honour, on display at the school’s new home of Exeter University’s Tremough campus, Penryn, lists 79 pupils who died in the conflict.
The Roll of Honour website also lists the school’s fallen. This has been supplemented by biographical details for each entrant, and here I must congratulate Carol Richards and Martin Edwards on the work they have done. The CSM Association has also produced an impressive booklet on the subject.11
How many played rugby, or were connected to the game? The above webpage gives no clues, but the Association’s memorial booklet has details of some of the school’s most famous sportsmen. Furthermore, it has identified two members of the 1911/12 XV:
Edward Dickson and Percy Whitehead both died on the Western Front. Image courtesy CSM Association
In January 1921 the school’s Memorial Committee observed that, of their fallen:
Quite a large number of them stand out as football players. Some of them players with much more than a local reputation.
The Cornishman, 19 Jan 1921. Page two
The names of 11 rugby footballers are listed and, most painfully of all, in some instances their nicknames are also given. But even this number is an underestimate. What follows is, as best I can make it, Camborne School of Mines RFC’s Roll of Honour. I’ve also included those who were involved in the club’s administration.
Born in Tunbridge, Bilks Balcombe attended Camborne School of Mines from 1905 to 1908, and the Memorial Committee in 1921 remembered him as a fine forward for the club. A Cornwall trialist in October 1907, he was unlucky to miss selection and the County Championship glory that came with it in March 1908.12
From 1910 to 1914, Bilks worked for mining companies in Brazil and Mexico, before returning home to enlist with the Royal Engineers. He eventually rose to the rank of Major, was wounded whilst on the first Somme advance in 1916, and was awarded the MC. He was further decorated with a bar in September 1918 for conspicuous gallantry, including rescuing an isolated detachment of men under heavy machine-gun fire.
Charles Balcombe died of his wounds on 29 October, 1918. He was 31.13
John Rowland Barratt
On Saturday, 26 January 1914, Camborne Town hosted the Camborne Students. It was their third fixture of the season. Appearing at scrum-half for the Students was John Barratt, whom the report noted for his ‘good work’, but it was not enough. His XV failed to register a score and Town won comfortably.14
Coming to Camborne from Cheltenham in 1911, John had been an army reservist before joining the Royal Army Service Corps and attaining the rank of lieutenant. He died in France on 24 January, 1919. He was 25.
A Londoner, William Bellasis must have been something of a demon sportsman. During his time as a student at Camborne, from 1903 to 1905, he not only played rugby for the school but also enjoyed football and cricket. In 1907 he represented Cornwall’s hockey team.15
William became a private with the East African Mounted Rifles. He died in November 1914 in German East Africa. He was 29.
Morley Berryman
Morley was a Troon boy, the son of a builder. He was a teammate of John Barratt and a member of the XV that lost to Camborne in January 1914. He played on the wing, but isn’t mentioned in the report, which tells us something about the Students’ lack of attacking play that day.
Morley responded to Kitchener’s call and joined a newly-formed battalion of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (DCLI). Private Berryman was taken prisoner and died in Turkey in August 1916. He was 21.
Born in Cheltenham, Humphrey represented Cornwall as a forward just once, against Gloucestershire in January 1906. John Jackett was in charge, and the XV contained men (for example, Bert Solomon, Nick Tregurtha and Tommy Wedge) that would win the County Championship with him in 1908. But their time was not now. In poor weather at Redruth, the game ended in a pointless draw. Humphrey also played alongside two fellow students, the brothers Henry and John Milton.17
Humphrey attended the Camborne school from 1903 to 1906, and was an outstanding student. He was awarded a place on a postgraduate course, which he took in Mysore, India. He then managed a mine in Newfoundland, and was surveyor of a Brazilian gold mine.
In May 1915 he was a lieutenant with the tunnelling section of the Royal Engineers, and later that year was posted to France. Humphrey was on the Western Front barely five weeks before he was killed in action. He was 31.18
Frederick Crathorne
Not a player, but an administrator: Fred was a student and secretary of the rugby club during the time Humphrey Braithwaite was there. The post was no sinecure. In December 1905 he successfully argued that a referee’s decision to send one of his players off was incorrect and should be overturned. That Fred had to put his case before a CRFU committee chaired by the indomitable Willie Hichens means he had some courage and considerable powers of persuasion.19
Fred had already worked for a year in Swaziland before coming to Camborne; after graduating he held various surveying and assaying positions in Africa, particularly on the Gold Coast. He returned to England in 1915.
As a lieutenant, Fred was attached to the 252nd Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers. He was killed in action on the Western Front in January 1916. He was 37.20
William Westaway Daw
William, who heralded from Torquay, was mentioned by the school’s Memorial Committee in 1921 as a solid forward for the rugby club. Previous to studying at Camborne from 1900 to 1904 he had been educated in Norway and King’s College London.
After working as an engineer in West Africa and Mexico, in 1908 he returned to Cornwall and managed the Parbola Mine, Gwinear. In 1911 he went back to Africa to oversee mining concerns there.
William became a lieutenant with the Royal Engineers and died of pneumonia in France in November 1918. He was 35.21
Edward John Quale Dickson
‘Kaffir’
Detail of Dickson from the 1911/12 XV
As his un-PC nickname suggests, Dickson, who attended the Camborne school from 1908 to 1911, had been born in South Africa. His talent as a rugby forward lay in his ability to control the ball with his feet, an important aspect of the game in those years. In a match against Camborne in 1910 he dribbled the ball practically the entire length of the pitch, but was denied a try, and had to come off with a dislocated finger. His XV lost.22
He took up mining appointments in Mexico, and during the Revolution there carried out several missions against various bands of armed insurgents.
Commissioned with the Royal Engineers in 1915, Edward achieved the rank of captain and was awarded the Military Cross. He was killed in action in Belgium, in October 1917. His Commanding Officer wrote of him that:
If ever there was a gallant officer he was one, looked up to by all and loved by all.
Though the Memorial Committee mentioned John’s merits as a rugby player in 1921, perhaps he wasn’t a model student. In 1908, the Cape Colony-born John’s last year at the school, he pleaded guilty and was fined for disorderly conduct in Camborne.24
He became a captain with the Northamptonshire regiment and was killed in action in France, in April 1915. He was 27.
Harold Gowans Ferguson
Harold, who studied in Camborne from 1911 to 1913, came from London. A Redruth team inspired by Dick Jackett and Bert Solomon were too much for the students’ side of which Harold was a forward in 1913, but he did earn his 1st XV cap that year. One of his teammates for that Redruth match was Edward Huddy.25
Harold became a major with the Royal Engineers and saw two years’ duty in France, winning the Military Cross. He died in London in November 1918, a result of double pneumonia following influenza. He was 28.26
Harold Greatwood
Harold attended the school from 1905 to 1908, and was born in Tiverton. A back with a massive kick, he made a ‘remarkable’ clearance for the students against Falmouth in 1908, but his team still lost.27
From 1909 to 1912 he was a surveyor for some Brazilian gold mines before returning to England and joining the Royal Geographical Society. He then travelled to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) before taking up his former position in Brazil. A commission in the Royal Field Artillery was offered him in 1916.28
Lt Greatwood died of his wounds in October 1917 in France. He was 30.
Edward Huddy
Image courtesy Kresen Kernow, ref. AD2583/1
As we can see above, Devon-born Edward was a 2nd XV regular, but he did make the odd appearance for the students’ chiefs, alongside Harold Ferguson.
Edward took the rank of lieutenant with the Gloucestershire regiment and was posted to the Western Front. He was killed in action on 30 July 1916 at the Battle of the Somme. He was 24.29
John McMaster Hutchinson
John Hutchinson, a Scotsman who attended the school from 1906 to 1909, played in the same Cornwall trial as Charles Balcombe. Like ‘Bilks’, John’s ambitions on a rugby pitch would get no further.30
John however was a top student. He gained a first class certificate on completing his course, and won prizes in geometry and hydrostatics competitions. An impressive career beckoned. He spent three years at Broken Hill, New South Wales and was home on leave when war broke out.
John became a lieutenant with the 9th Gordon Highlanders and was killed in action during the final stages of the Battle of the Somme in October 1916. He was 29.
Alexander Downing Johnson
On Thursday, 23 April 1903, five mining students were up before the beak, charged with causing a disturbance and assaulting police officers. The fracas predictably originated in:
… connection with a football match, where some ill-feeling was engendered.
Reports of the incident outside Cornwall greatly inflated the events, presenting the students as desperadoes armed with revolvers and knives. In truth, it was a minor disagreement between ‘town and gown’, the miscreants apologised, were bound over to keep the peace, and all was forgotten. One of the youngsters in the dock was Alexander Johnson.31
Johnson, from County Kildare, was a player as well as a brawler, being remembered as such by the school’s Memorial Committee in 1921. On graduating he worked for four years in South Africa, and from 1908 to 1912 worked in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), eventually being put in charge of a gold mine.
He resigned his post in November 1914 and joined the South Staffordshires, achieving the rank of captain. He was killed in action at the Battle of Loos in September 1915. He was 34.32
A vicar’s son from Monmouthshire, Colin was as much a career soldier as a mining engineer. He attended the school from 1897 to 1900, but must have left pretty rapidly to serve as a trooper in the South African Constabulary, fighting the Boers. At or around this time he was also prospecting in Alaska. Somehow he found the time (and the energy) to represent the school both as a rugby and football player.33
Colin held surveying and engineering posts in the Transvaal and Nigeria throughout the 1900s; on the declaration of war he joined the North Nigerian Regiment.
Wounded in May 1915, Colin was invalided home, but not for long. That autumn he was appointed captain with the Shropshire Light Infantry. Colin was killed in action on the Western Front in September 1916. A fellow officer wrote:
His company was the leading company, and it was thanks to his fine and gallant leading the whole attack was such a magnificent success. After having captured the first trench he was killed, collecting his men to go and attack the second.
A student from 1906 to 1908, William was born in the Orange Free State and was a fine full-back. When St Ives defeated the students 14-3 in early 1909, his strong tackling and clearance kicks ensured his XV weren’t completely embarrassed.35
William sailed for Natal in 1911, but enlisted and was made a captain with the Royal Engineers. He died of his wounds in February 1917, on the Western Front. He was 30.
Ernest Edward Milton
A student from London in the early 1900s, Ernest played rugby, but at first not for the school. The Camborne rock-drill engineering firm, Holmans, formed a team in 1903 and Ernest turned out for them, scoring a try in their victory over Hayle. In August 1903 he crushed two of his fingers in an engine at the firm’s works. No bones were broken, but Ernest’s name disappears from match reports around this time. In 1907, though, he seems to have made a comeback, this time turning out for the school in a defeat by Camborne, alongside William Madore and George Roberts.36
Upon completing his studies, Ernest travelled to Bolivia where he worked as a mining engineer. Like so many others, he returned to England to enlist and became a lieutenant with the Royal Engineers. Ernest was killed in action in France in January 1917. His major wrote that:
The company loses a valuable officer, who was very popular with all ranks.
Marylebone Mercury, 3 Feb 1917. Page two
Ernest was 32.
George Herbert Milton
Ernest’s younger brother, George attended the school from 1907 to 1909. Like Ernest (indeed, like all the Milton boys), he was a keen sportsman, representing the school at rugby but progressing to represent Cornwall as a hockey player too.37
George worked at a Colombian gold mine for three years before taking up a post in Bolivia. From there he went to Nigeria, but returned to England in autumn 1915.
George became a lieutenant with the Royal Field Artillery, and was killed in action in France in October 1917. He was 29.38
The war years were not kind to the Milton family. John G ‘Jumbo’ Milton died aged 30 of pneumonia in South Africa in June 1915. Besides playing rugby for the school, he had represented Cornwall as a forward on 17 occasions, being a member of the 1908 Championship XV. He also won five caps for England.39
Henry Cecil Milton survived the war, but was wounded in France as a captain with the DCLI. He won ten caps for Cornwall whilst a mining student, and a solitary cap for England. He died in 1961.40
Charles Hercules Augustus Francis Newton
Newton was Edward Huddy’s skipper. Image courtesy Kresen Kernow, ref. AD2583/1
With a name like that, why wouldn’t you make him captain of a rugby team? London-born Newton studied in Camborne from 1910 to 1912, and perhaps best personifies here English rugby’s intention to embody imperialism and militarism. His father, Sir Francis Newton, was a senior colonial administrator, mainly in what is now Zimbabwe. In 1924 he was appointed High Commissioner of Southern Rhodesia.41
It was probably natural with such a background that, on declaration of war, Charles would join up. He became a lieutenant with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Charles may have carried the name of a mythical hero, but he was all too human. He was killed in action in Belgium, in March 1916. He was 26.
Ian came to Camborne from Perth, Scotland, in 1902. The Memorial Committee recalled him as a fine forward; in 1904 he appeared for the students against ‘Town’ alongside Humphrey Braithwaite and Henry Milton. As so often in this period, the match featured no little violence and a Camborne player was forced to leave the field with an injury sustained in a fracas. The game ended in a 13-all draw.42
Upon completing his studies, Ian worked as a surveyor in North Wales, before spending three years at a Tasmanian gold mine. He then travelled to Nigeria, and was home in Scotland when war broke out.
Ian rose to the rank of captain in the Lothian Regiment, and was killed in action at the Battle of Loos in September 1915. His body was never recovered. He was 30.43
George Jewell Roberts
A Perranporth lad, George was a mining student from 1906 to 1909. In 1907, appearing for his school with Ernest Milton and William Madore, he scored a try against Camborne from a five-yard scrum. It was the students’ only touchdown as they went down 18–5.44
George’s qualifications took him all over. He had a year in Spain and two years in Egypt before sailing to Minnesota. He cut his career short on the outbreak of war and returned home to enlist.
A lieutenant with the Royal Engineers, George died of his wounds in June 1916, near Ypres. He was 27.45
William Roland Turner
William only attended the school from 1913 to 1914, but he did get a chance to play rugby. With Morley Berryman and John Barratt, he was a member of the XV that lost a low-scoring match against Camborne in January 1914. A missed tackle by Turner at full-back allowed Town to cross the line, but luckily for him the try was disallowed.46
Originally from London, William became a lieutenant with the Royal Engineers’ 250th Tunnelling Company. He succumbed to wounds in November 1917, on the Western Front. He was 29.
Percy Neil Whitehead
‘Snowball’
Detail of Whitehead from the 1911/12 XV
Devon-born Snowball had it all. Before arriving in Camborne in 1910 he had been educated at Charterhouse and Cambridge. No slouch on a rugby pitch, he was a Cornwall trialist in 1912.47
He joined the Royal Engineers in 1915 and eventually attained the rank of captain. In August 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross for the following piece of conspicuous gallantry:
When a party of our troops had lost their direction during an attack, he immediately went out and led them to the correct line. At the enemy’s parapet he was wounded in two places at point blank range, but was rescued.
Evening Mail, 26 Aug 1916. Page six
Percy was killed in action on the Western Front in March 1918. He was 29.
Arthur James Wilson
‘Ajax’, 17 caps for Cornwall, 1907–1909
A languid Wilson when at Glenalmond College
…and trying to live up to his nickname with Cornwall in 190848
One of Camborne School of Mines greatest forwards was born in Newcastle. Arthur’s rugby career was brief but memorable. He won the County Championship with Cornwall in 1908, and played in their unsuccessful bid for a gold medal against Australia at that year’s London Olympics. A year later he was capped by England, assisting them to victory over Ireland. In the same XV were Edgar Mobbs and Ronald Poulton-Palmer, two of English rugby’s most famous casualties.
He worked in mines along the Gold Coast and in South Africa, and also as a tea planter in India.
Arthur joined the Royal Fusiliers as a private, and was killed at some point during the opening stages of the Battle of Passchendaele in July 1917. His body was never recovered. He was 29.49
The Officer Class
A rugby team of officer cadets, Scotland, 1916. Image courtesy Imperial War Museum
That these 24 men all played rugby for, or were involved with Camborne School of Mines RFC doesn’t in any way explain why they were killed in World War One. Indeed, the fact that they played rugby at all is only important because the RFU insisted it should be so, and I appreciate that this post in no little way perpetuates the RFU’s own myth. No other sport carries its death-toll with such pride.
Indeed, how important was the game of rugby football to these men? All embarked on successful professional careers after completing their courses in Camborne; none seem to have continued playing the game, or taken an active interest in it, when their studies were over. One, Fred Crathorne, doesn’t seem to have played at all. Even the most successful, Arthur Wilson, abandoned rugby to sail to Africa.
Yet they all came back to fight. Patriotism and defence of the Empire, therefore, meant more to these men than facing up to Camborne RFC on a damp Saturday afternoon as a welcome break between lessons. Here we begin to see just why these men joined up, and were killed.
Public schools, said Cardinal Henry Manning (1808–1892):
have made England what it is – able to subdue the earth.
From: Davenport-Hines, R. Enemies Within: Communists, the Cambridge Spies and the Making of Modern Britain. William Collins, 2019. Page 174
Public schools were muscular, Christian, middle class and British. They sought to prepare their pupils for an adult life as members of the ruling cadre, at home and abroad. Nationalism, toughness, conformity, camaraderie and emotional repression were virtues that were instilled with a will. Was not rugby football developed in public schools with these very aims in mind?50
Look at where our rugby players schooled before coming to Camborne. The Milton brothers went to Bedford School, as did William Madore. Snowball Whitehead went to Charterhouse. Charles Balcombe attended Felsted School. Arthur Wilson boarded at Glenalmond College.
They were as much sons of the British Empire as they were of the Industrial Revolution. Almost pre-programmed to answer the call to arms when their country was in danger, their breeding and education also qualified them as leaders of men – the officer class.
It also greatly increased their chances of getting killed. In World War One, ten per cent of all combatant men died; for officers, this figure doubles to 20 per cent.51
Of the 24 members of the Camborne School of Mines RFC who were killed in World War One, 12 were lieutenants, seven were captains, two were majors and three were privates.
One historian writes that:
The toll taken on those recruited was hideous. Young middle-class men – the archetypal rugby players – became junior officers, first in the sights of machine-gunners as they led charges out of the trenches.
Richards, H. A Game for Hooligans: The History of Rugby Union. Mainstream Publishing, 2007. Page 107
Therein lies the tragedy of the men of Camborne School of Mines RFC. We will remember them.
The ‘killed in action’ stamp that appears on the photograph of the 1910/11 XV that heads this post is taken from the service papers of my great-uncle, William George Edwards. He was in killed in action on the Western Front in July 1916.
All content on my website is absolutely FREE. However managing and researching my blog is costly! Please donate a small sum to help me produce more fascinating tales from Cornwall’s past!
Pelmear, K. Rugby in the Duchy: An Official History of the Great Game in Cornwall. CRFU, 1960. Salmon, T. The First Hundred Years: The Story of Rugby Football in Cornwall. CRFU, 1983.
The Cornishman, 27 Aug 1914. Page two. West Briton, 23 Jan 1919. Page four.
Hobsbawm, E. Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914–1991. Abacus, 1995.
Collins, T. A Social History of English Rugby Union. Routledge, 2009. Cooper, S. After the Final Whistle: The First Rugby World Cup and the First World War. The History Press, 2016.
Cooper, S. After the Final Whistle: The First Rugby World Cup and the First World War. The History Press, 2016.
Piper, L. The Camborne School of Mines: The History of Mining Education in Cornwall. Trevithick Society, 2013.
See: https://roll-of-honour.com/Cornwall/CamborneSchoolOfMines.html. The player’s biographical details, unless otherwise stated, are taken from here. See also: Richards, C. In Grateful Memory of the Men of Camborne Mining School Who Gave Their Lives for King and Country in the Great War 1914-1918. Camborne School of Mines Association, 2014.
The Cornishman, 26 May 1904. Page five. Royal Cornwall Gazette, 26 Jan 1905. Page three. West Briton, 28 Feb 1907. Page three. Western Morning News, 21 Mar 1907. Page seven.
Information from: Salmon, T. The First Hundred Years: The Story of Rugby Football in Cornwall. CRFU, 1983.
We haven’t had a stoppage like this for ages – not since the week before last ~ I’m All Right Jack (1959)
We’re organised, see? ~ Hue and Cry (1947)
Workers of the world, unite
In the years leading up to World War One, Britain experienced labour unrest on an unprecedented scale. Winston Churchill sent the infantry into the Welsh valleys as 30,000 striking miners ground the coal industry to a halt. Gunboats patrolled the Mersey, menacing intransigent dockers.
The country’s working class demonstrated steely resolve. London’s stevedores only returned to work under the threat of their children being left to starve. Railway workers refused to handle goods destined for Ireland, in a show of solidarity with their striking comrades in Dublin. All the unrest, observes one historian,
… demonstrated for the first time since the days of the Chartists that the working class could take the ruling class by the throat.
Tony Collins, Raising the Red Flag: Marxism, Labourism, and the Roots of British Communism 1884-1921, Haymarket Books, 2023, p45
The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent seizure of power by the Bolsheviks raised the bar of socialist ambition. Britain’s leading communists undertook arduous journeys to the new workers’ paradise and sought the advice of Comrade Lenin. In the summer of 1920, the Communist Party of Great Britain was founded in London.1
Socialist revolution in Britain was a very real threat2
These turbulent years saw a genuine commitment from vast swathes of the British working class toward protest and organised walkouts. Anything could be achieved by the simple act of downing tools. For what sadly seems like the last time in labour history, Britain’s proletarians had the whip hand in employment relations and exploited this advantage to its fullest.
Seeing what could potentially be achieved by the politics of striking, the younger generation followed suit.
Abolish the cane
New York’s newspaper boys went on strike for two weeks in 1899 and effectively halted news distribution in the city. These little scamps however are from St Louis. Photo by Lewis Hine3
In 1911 over 60 towns in the UK experienced school strikes, mainly over the issue of corporal punishment.4 Several places of learning in the Edgehill district of Liverpool suffered walkouts, scholars committed acts of vandalism on protest marches and loyalist students were thrashed. The strikers’ demands were as follows:
An extra half-day holiday each week.
Abolition of the cane.
No school fees.
Monitors to be paid one penny each week.
Cornish and Devon Post, September 16 1911, p3
The ringleader shortly discovered the cane was still held in high regard by the school authorities, and the newspapers made light of the whole affair, describing it as a ‘Comedy’.5 This serves to belittle or marginalise the efforts of the children who were trying to improve their lot, a recurring feature of strike reportage. Dismissing a school strike as little more than a spontaneous prank does such acts a disservice. We would do well to recall that the longest running strike in British history – from 1914 to 1939 – centred around a school.6
Striking St Austell clayworkers stretcher away an injured miner after a run-in with the police. Daily Graphic, September 3 19137
Considering Cornwall, in 1914 the boys and girls of Bugle Council School organised themselves. It was their opinion that a new teacher had been treating them too harshly. To ‘convince the authorities’ of the gravity of their plight the children appointed a deputation, left the school to parade through the streets of Bugle and presented themselves at the school manager’s home.8
The juvenile strikers had chanted slogans – and taken inspiration – from the recent clay strike in nearby St Austell, but there was no police baton-charge in Bugle. Indeed, the strike only lasted an afternoon.
Blisland’s schoolchildren also walked out in 1914, as did their compatriots at Lanteglos-by-Fowey in 1919.9 By far the most serious Cornish school strike, though, took place at Polruan in 1922.
The strike is important as it reveals, for better or worse, certain features of Cornish society at the time. Most evident is a fear or mistrust of outsiders that borders on the xenophobic (many would argue that this is an integral part of the Cornish character). There is also a semi-pathological mistrust of authority, and that that authority is inherently venal and corrupt. Post-war British and European society was bitterly divided between workers and employers, haves and have-nots, patricians and plebeians:
… crowns and thrones had perished, aristocracies had been vanquished, great estates and splendid possessions had been confiscated, and venerable titles abolished … Ordered, stable, traditional societies had been torn apart, as revolution was followed by civil war and anarchy …
David Cannadine, Class in Britain, Penguin, 2000, p127
Of course, Britain did not experience revolution, civil war or anarchy. But that doesn’t mean to say that many people at the time actively fomented such a state of affairs.
Another factor is the reverence held by many communities for those who had proven themselves in the recent conflict, in direct contrast to those (shirkers, conscientious objectors, cowards) who hadn’t. The final element to consider is the Polruan parents’ influence on their disgruntled offspring. Did the idea to strike form in the adults’ minds first, or did the children take the lead?
Boasting a total of 65 attendees, in December 1921 the school’s headmaster, Mr Widlake, was due to retire. Of the 12 candidates seeking his post, there were two front-runners.
James R. Roberts was in his late twenties and originally from St Agnes; he was the assistant head at Polruan. Although he had only recently gained his teaching certificate, Roberts had ten years’ experience in the job, at two other Cornish village schools, Millbrook and Fourlanesend. Popular with his pupils, Roberts also had a touch of glamour. He had seen action on the Macedonian Front during the war and had been wounded in 1918. He already had Mr Widlake’s vote for the job. In short, Roberts’ application was compelling.11
Samuel L. Tipping, a certified teacher from 1905, was 39 and from Liverpool. He had married a Polruan girl and wanted to move his family back to Cornwall. During the war, he had been on home service with the Royal Garrison Artillery. The only applicant from outside Cornwall, Tipping had vast experience of inner-city schools and must have been a teacher of the highest calibre.12
The six school managers, all locals, met before Widlake’s departure to appoint the new headmaster. The selection was to be informed by the following criteria: experience, qualifications and war service. The successful candidate was voted in by four to two, and the announcement was made on 8 November.
Polruan Boys’ new headmaster was to be Samuel Tipping. He would receive a higher salary than if Roberts had been awarded the post, which was taken to mean a greater strain on the ratepayers’ wallets.13
Then the problems started.
Flying pickets
Something seems to have upset a young employee of the Parkgate Iron and Steel Co., Rotherham, in 190114
Almost immediately, the parents took action. A deputation sent a written appeal to the school managers, requesting they rescind their decision and appoint Roberts as the new head. When this fell on deaf ears, they appealed to the County Education Authority, with similar results.
The parents then requested the managers meet them with the aim of coming to an agreement, but this was declined. The authorities’ stonewalling was a mistake. A petition, signed by 118 Polruan inhabitants, was sent to the managers on 3 December. The final paragraph carried a threat:
We again appeal to you to earnestly do your utmost to appoint the right man in the right place, thus preventing any calamity which might take place on the re-opening of the school after the Christmas holidays.
Monday, 9 January 1922. When Polruan Boys’ School reopened after the seasonal break, only half the 60-odd pupils showed up.
The managers arrived to formally welcome Tipping to his new post, then rapidly made themselves scarce. Trouble was on the way, in the form of around 30 pubescent protest marchers.
After striding up and down Polruan’s streets, chanting the slogans which had been painted on the their banners (‘Up Roberts!’ and ‘Down Tipping!’), the boys formed a picket outside the school.
For the next six hours, a miniature riot took place as the strikers made their presence known. The school was bombarded with stones and turves, while some of the bolder lads scrambled up the window ledges and gave their feelings full voice.
Inside, lessons were impossible. Tipping must have been wondering what the hell he’d done to merit such a reception. A local newspaper made it plain. Most of Polruan were incredulous that Roberts had lost out, seeing as he was
… very popular with the boys and the inhabitants, the latter of whom considered that as he is a Cornishman and had been on active service in Salonika he should have been appointed.
Cornish Guardian, January 13 1922, p5
The following day, Polruan Boys’ School was under police guard. An extra officer was drafted in, and he spent most of his shift confiscating numerous banners and flags from the still-parading children. Little good it did him; no sooner would he relieve one striker of their placard then it would be replaced by a budding adult.16
Had the children planned the protest and strike themselves, and their parents merely provided their equipment? Or had the children been directed to take the actions they did?
Either way, this was obviously no spur-of-the-moment appeal. The Polruan School Strike had a certain level of complicity on the part of the children and their parents. Convincing 30 kids to spend the best part of the day marching around outdoors – in January – would be difficult to achieve had not the children felt as passionately about the appointment of Tipping as their elders.
One thing we must also realise is that no adults were ever reported to have taken part in the protests, no matter how much they were involved in the preliminary objections.
This was a children’s act of defiance, which their parents rubber-stamped.
The strike was quickly condemned in the press as undemocratic and ill-informed. In a political democracy,
… we must be very careful how far we object to the decisions come to by duly elected public authorities … we don’t get rid of them by incitement to disorder and law-breaking.
Cornish Guardian, January 20 1922, p5
Furthermore, the same columnist stated that the strike ‘has been given an importance which it hardly deserves.’ It is with great irony, then, that three pages later in the same edition of the Cornish Guardian, we discover that one of their stringers had visited Polruan on Thursday, 17 January, to better cover the ‘scene of action’.
The only action that day, with the strike now in its second week, was stirred up by the reporter themselves. Most of the 24 striking boys had gone winkle picking. When some did appear, they appeared nonplussed by the visitor’s erroneous insistence that their travelling companion was a detective from Scotland Yard.
On the front door of a local matriarch, though, was chalked the legend ‘Up Roberts, down Tipping’, and the inhabitant needed little prompting to speak plainly on behalf of Polruan’s community:
Why should the managers appoint Mr Tipping because his wife is a Polruan girl? Why didn’t they appoint Mr Roberts, who is a Cornishman, instead of a foreigner from Liverpool?
Cornish Guardian, January 20 1922, p8
The lady also asserted that Tipping had ‘got round’ the managers when he visited Polruan the previous summer. The authorities ought to be defied, because they had gone against the wishes of the ratepayers. The boys would ‘never’ go back to school with Tipping at the helm.
The Guardian‘s journalist found the school itself peaceful, albeit with two policemen standing guard, chilled to the marrow. The dispute was at a stalemate: the boys would not return unless Roberts supplanted Tipping, which is something the authorities were powerless to do. Talk had replaced action.
There were rumours of the girls’ school walking out in sympathy, and those boys attending lessons were pejoratively described as ‘black legs’ by the strikers. The reporter fomented a chorus of boos and jeers from a crowd of 50 locals who were sympathetic toward the strike, but you got the sense it was only going to end one way.
We the undersigned
The National Union of School Students was only formed in the 1970s18
The strike was comparatively easy to neutralise. Its young protagonists and the their backers were not involved in a more traditional dispute of employer-employee relations and were thus neither members of, nor recognised by, any trade union.
Their grievance as they saw it – the appointment of the wrong man as headteacher – had none of the universal appeal of the 1911 school strikes, which focused on the issue of corporal punishment. No solidarity walkouts, even from Polruan Girls’ School, would be forthcoming.
The strike was therefore localised and its participants isolated. Even within the school itself, only 24 of the 65 boys remained steadfast in their conviction. Apparently nobody considered clubbing together to hire a stand-in teacher, or take it upon themselves to provide some tuition for the strikers. It would have reinforced their status before the authorities.
On Monday, 23 January, with the strike about to enter its fourth week, twenty Polruan parents made their way to Liskeard Police Court. The charge contained in the summons, issued on the 16th, was that of
… failing to send their boys to school.
Cornubian and Redruth Times, January 26 1922, p5
Immediately the summons had been received in Polruan then the prosecutor received the following in a letter:
We the undersigned as parents and ratepayers declare that our boys will not attend school at Polruan until Mr Roberts is appointed headmaster of the Boys’ School, and Mr. Tipping withdrawn from the school.
Cornubian and Redruth Times, January 26 1922, p5
For all the bombast, the parents unanimously pleaded guilty and coughed up their five shilling fines. But they had their say in court.19
One remarked that it was unfair Tipping got the job. The word in Polruan was that he had been assured of the post in the summer; Mrs Tipping had told all who would listen. The whole thing was a fit-up.
Walter Olsen, who had a young teenager and a five year-old out on strike, declared it was ‘nothing but right’ that Roberts should have got the job.
Mariner Henry Smith, whose son William was ten, alleged that family influence had got Tipping in. The lack of transparency was also frustrating:
We asked the managers to give us a public meeting …
Cornubian and Redruth Times, January 26 1922, p5
His sentiments were echoed by Roderick Dow, an unemployed docker from Antigua. John Tomlin, a boatman whose two lads had spent the best part of a month at home, told the court that Roberts would have made the school ‘a little heaven’. Frank Thomas said his boy had ‘greatly improved’ as a scholar under Roberts, and ‘as a Cornishman’, wanted him in charge.
Archibald Allen, a GWR employee, had two sons on strike. He stated that
It is a bad job if you have to go out of Cornwall for schoolmasters … I should think that there are just as good men in Cornwall as in Liverpool for educating the boys.
Cornish Guardian, January 27 1922, p7
All present were reminded of the illegality of their actions. The parents should have employed ‘constitutional means’ to vent their dissatisfaction. Any school appointment was the business of the managers, who had, after all, had picked the man best qualified. The managers in turn had been elected by the parents themselves, who were also told that the rates would not increase.
The boys would return to school on the Tuesday, but one adult remarked darkly in Liskeard that Polruan had been set ‘on fire’.21 Luckily it didn’t get that far.
It is unclear who was abroad in Polruan on the Monday evening after the hearing, parents, children, or both. What is clear is that an unpleasant mob gathered outside Tipping’s house, challenging him to come out and face them. The distinguished literary figure, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, then of the Cornwall Education Authority, heard of the disturbance over in Fowey and sent police reinforcements over to break things up.22
‘Q’ realised bridges needed to be built and the air cleared. He would chair a meeting of the education committee and a deputation of the Polruan parents on Friday, 24th January. Beforehand, though, it became apparent that Roberts should not have even been considered for the job: under the regulations of the time, his lack of college training meant he was not eligible for the job ‘under any circumstances.’23
The committee, with Roberts, Tipping and Polruan’s vicar in attendance, faced a grim set of ratepayers, who regarded them with ‘deadly earnest’.24 You cannot help but think such a meeting should have taken place before Christmas 1921. Such laxity on the part of the authorities surely contributed to the discontent evident in Polruan.
Q and his cohorts were certainly taken aback by the organisation and resolution of their opponents. Their objections to Tipping’s appointment were listed point by point. Furthermore, evidence was presented that ‘personal influence’ had secure Tipping the post. His wife was related to at least two of the managers, and Tipping had even canvassed the vicar to champion his application. All this was stringently denied.
All Tipping had done, in reality, was enquire about the particulars of the job, as any sensible man would. He was also called on to refute the story that he had personally caned all the strikers when they finally returned to his school. That Mrs Tipping had used her family ties to get her husband appointed was baseless.25 Q closed the meeting by asserting that his authority would not be bullied, and that Tipping at least deserved a chance – especially as Roberts was ineligible. Ultimately, Tipping’s appointment was upheld.26
The people of Polruan, it was argued, hadn’t shown the best of themselves:
… it [the strike] was in no respect creditable to the Cornish character … actuated by narrow and ignorant prejudices … This is carrying the distinction between Cornwall and “foreigners” a great deal too far, and by this time the people of Polruan have got to know it.
West Briton, February 2 1922, p4
Perhaps so, but the situation only got out of hand thanks to the authorities refusing to listen to the people of Polruan in the first instance.
James Roberts, who it must be said seemed to have been rather embarrassed by the events, left Polruan in May 1922 to take up a post in Newquay. He died in Wales in 1956.28
Samuel Tipping, who overall maintained a dignified silence over the strike, took his chance and eventually proved himself the right man for Polruan. He was active in the local football club, and a vocal, forthright presence at local council meetings. The village he made home was always put first, and he was a fixture at rural committee meetings into the 1930s.29
But to some, he would always be an outsider. As late as 1934 locals sought to attack him in print over his activities as Lanteglos parish’s representative on the Liskeard Rural District Council. By now, though, Tipping had his champions. They would justifiably point out that Polruan, unrepresented at Liskeard for 18 years before Tipping took up its cudgels, had been in a state of ‘hopeless neglect’ before his arrival.30
By then the school, erected in 1870 (a significant year for British education), had ceased to exist. On 19 July 1940, a lone German bomber machine-gunned Polruan’s harbour, and then dropped its cargo over the village, scoring a direct hit on the building. Polruan had finally been set on fire.
As this occurred at teatime, the school was deserted and nobody was injured. Standing as a ruin until it was finally demolished in 1958, the locals recalled with glee ‘the days of the great strike’ as the bulldozers moved in.32
Today, a car park on St Saviour’s Hill covers the site.
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Cornish Guardian, January 20 1922, p8, 1921 census. Roberts’ war service records also available on Ancestry, but sadly in many places the writing is faded and illegible.
Cornish Guardian, January 20 1922, p8; January 27 1922, p7, 1921 census.
Cornish Guardian, January 20 1922, p8; January 27 1922, p7; Cornubian and Redruth Times, January 26 1922, p5.
The details from the court hearing are taken from: Cornubian and Redruth Times, January 26 1922, p5, and the Cornish Guardian, January 27 1922, p5. The parents’ backgrounds are taken from the 1921 census.
In June 2025 I received a communication from a lady in California called Julie Kong. She had found a trophy in her late father’s closet, wrapped in a blanket. She recalled her grandmother’s second husband, Jack Sobey, had owned the trophy. How it came to be in Sobey’s possession was unknown.
The sterling silver trophy is 11 inches high, and weighs 35 ounces. Engraved on the front, and presumably why she was emailing me in the first place, is the following:
‘The Duke of Cornwall’s Cup, 1868’
Julie’s initial email concluded with ‘Thanks for any information you can give me.’
Sensing a challenge as well as a story, I got digging.
The hallmarks are as you have stated
The first thing I wanted to do was confirm the trophy was genuine. Julie sent me a photo of the hallmarks:
Four miniscule stamps
Starting from the left, the first stamp reads ‘RMEH’. This was the maker’s mark of a Sheffield firm, Martin, Hall & Co, and dated the cup to between 1863 and 1878:
Beside RMEH is a lion, the lion passant. This confirms the cup is sterling silver. The crown, on the far right, is the symbol for a piece that was made in Sheffield. The ‘V’ denotes the year of manufacture. This dated the origin of the trophy to 1863:
As my knowledge of antique silverware ain’t what it used to be, I got all this verified by Payne & Son, an independent Oxford silversmith. They told me that ‘the hallmarks are as you have stated.’ Another silverware expert valued the trophy at around £1000.3
So far, so good. Now for the big questions: who originally owned the cup, how did it come to be in their possession, and how did it get to California?
Wrestling?
Joseph Menear with his Duke of Cornwall’s cup. From the Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical and Musical Review, April 2 1864, p1
It was at this point that I allowed myself to be seduced by the notion that Julie’s trophy was a wrestling trophy. I knew they were rather ubiquitous, and could turn up in odd places. For example, a trophy won by a Cornishman in South Africa in 1910 was (literally) unearthed by workmen at Tolvaddon, near Camborne, in 2010.4
I learned that London’s Cornwall and Devon Wrestling Society had presented a brand new trophy at their Easter competition in 1863, in honour of their patron (and future Edward VII), the Duke of Cornwall. This date fitted with the manufacture of the trophy currently in California. A Cornish wrestler, Joseph Menear, won the Duke of Cornwall’s cup so often in the 1860s that, certainly by 1869, the society had let him keep the cup in perpetuity. Was the trophy in California Joseph Menear’s long lost cup?
As you can see by the image of Menear above, it wasn’t, but I did get to write about Cornish wrestling in London.5 It seems the Duke of Cornwall had more than one trophy named after him in the 1860s. Besides the one in California and Joseph Menear’s, the Royal Cornwall Regatta presented one as well in 1865.6
How, then, was I going to prove beyond doubt the provenance of Julie’s trophy? Thankfully the answer was staring me in the face.
The Royal Cornwall County Races
Image courtesy St Columb Then and Now, Facebook
John Hicks Sobey was born in 1838 in Eggbuckland, Devon, to Cornish parents.7 The Sobeys were prosperous, owning the 530 acre Rooke Farm, near Chapel Amble in the St Kew parish. A grade two listed building, nowadays Rooke Farm is a self-catering holiday home.8 John inherited in the 1860s, taking on all the trappings of the gentleman farmer.
A Freemason by 1863, he employed a groom and had some impressive stables. Of the 17 horses at Rooke Farm, several were kept purely for racing, including one in particular, the ‘celebrated’ Why Not.9
Sobey’s passion for horse racing coincided with this particular sport of kings enjoying something of a renaissance in 1860s Cornwall. In 1861 the County Races, in abeyance since 1854, were rejuvenated and took place on a course at New Downs, about two miles from St Columb and possibly close to today’s Trebudannon course.10 The Cornish country set no longer had to venture into Devon for their sport, and by 1862 the races were already firmly established as an important date on the south-west gentry’s social calendar:
From an early hour, visitors began to flock … from all parts of the County: every sort of conveyance seemed to have been put into requisition. The parties from Devonshire, and the eastern parts of the county, came either to Bodmin or St Austell by train and then drove to St Columb, while those from Truro, Redruth, &c., came in cabs, chaises, dog-carts and vehicles of every description.
Royal Cornwall Gazette, May 23 1862, p8
There was a grandstand, refreshment booths, shows, entertainments; in fact it was the perfect place for those with money, and those with money who wanted more money, to see and to be seen. Indeed, newspapers were careful to mention the names of the most important people present.11
En-route to the Epsom Derby. From the Illustrated London News, June 3 1865, p533
By 1863 the races, held on a single day, Tuesday, 5 May, attracted thousands of spectators. One reporter described the whole affair as ‘the Epsom of the County of Cornwall’.12 A year later Prince Albert Edward, Duke of Cornwall and a known lover of the turf, gave his name to the gathering. Henceforth, the meet would be termed ‘The Royal Cornwall County Races’, and Edward donated a cup to be offered as a prize.13
‘Minoru’ wins the Epsom Derby in 1909. The horse was owned by Edward VII and he was present at its victory14
By 1867, John Sobey was competing in races around Cornwall. At Fowey, riding Why Not, he placed fourth in a £5 hurdle race. Why Not had undoubted ability, but was temperamental. The horse had chances to win, but bolted in one heat and refused to take a hurdle in the final. Sobey had brought another of his stable to the meet, but Why Not clearly had something extra.15 If Sobey was planning his racing calendar, then Why Not was the one to take to the Cornish Epsom, and race for the big prizes.
On Tuesday, 19 May 1868, several thousand had gathered at New Downs for that day’s entertainment, though on the whole it was reported that the field was a disappointing one.16 Not that Sobey would have minded. The race he had entered, for the Duke of Cornwall’s Cup, only contained two other competitors, thus greatly reducing his odds.
It was no contest.17 Why Not ran a barnstorming race, finishing a clear four lengths clear of the nearest challenger. Sobey swept up 20 guineas, pocketed the sweepstakes, and of course lifted aloft that year’s sterling silver Duke of Cornwall’s Cup:
Courtesy Julie Kong.
Was the Duke of Cornwall there to present the cup?
Almost certainly not. According to a biography, ‘Bertie’ was in Ireland around this time18
Sobey raced Why Not for the cup again in 1869, but had to be content with third.19 Then he must have made a decision. In August 1871 Rooke Farm was up for auction. Everything was under the hammer, all the buildings, 120 sheep, 60-head of cattle, farming implements, hogsheads of cider, even his 17 horses including, of course, the famed Why Not. One item most definitely not for sale, though, was Sobey’s prized cup. A farewell dinner, attended by 30 local gentlemen, was held in Wadebridge to see Sobey off. He was going to America.20
He arrived in New York on 6 November, 1871. With him was his young son, Herbert. And his Rooke Farm housekeeper, Mary Williams.
Tragedy
6 November, 1871. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1957. John Sobey’s name (with Herbert below) is fourth from the top; Mary’s entry, second from bottom
Sobey was a bachelor.21 I’m really not prepared to speculate on the nature of his relationship with Mary Grose Williams, who was born in St Kew in 1843.22 Nor am I going to hypothesise that his decision to emigrate – with his son and his housekeeper – was influenced by any suggestion of a scandal in Cornwall as regards that relationship. Nothing I’ve found points in that direction.
Be that as it may, some time in 1867 John’s son, Herbert, was born in Cornwall. It had to have been around this year because, tragically, father and son drowned at Point of Timber, Antioch, on 13 June 1874. John Hicks Sobey’s death was heard of in Cornwall, but no mention was made of Herbert’s.23 Herbert was around seven at the time of his death:
Oak View Memorial Park, Antioch, Contra Costa County, California24
Sobey’s second son, Arthur Lyne Sobey, was born in around 1872. In the 1880 U.S. federal census, he’s the stepson of Melvin Grover, whose wife (and Arthur’s mother), Mary, was born in England. Arthur had a brother, who had been born on February 10, 1874: John Hicks Sobey. On his social security application, this John Hicks Sobey had to provide his parents’ names, which he duly did: John Hicks Sobey Snr., and Mary G. Williams.25
Somehow or other, the Duke of Cornwall’s Cup passed to the young John Hicks Sobey.
John Hicks Sobey
John Hicks Sobey (right) in 1951. Beside him is his second wife, Helen, Julie Kong’s grandmother. Beside her is Julie Kong’s father. With thanks
John’s first wife, Lillie, died in 1923. They had two sons, Darrell and Russell.26 Both died within a year of each other in the 1940s.27 In the 1940 U.S. federal census, John is living in Sacramento and remarried to Helen who herself had children by her first marriage. One of John’s three stepchildren is Julie Kong’s father.
John Hicks Sobey died in 1958.28 Eventually, the Duke of Cornwall’s Cup, a time-capsule from Victorian Cornwall with a hundred more stories to tell, was inherited by Julie’s late father, John Wade. Now it’s hers. The last words belong to her. John Hicks Sobey
… raised all three children like they were his own. I think that’s why the trophy meant so much to my dad … I feel like it must hold some valuable history.
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United Grand Lodge of England, 1863-1887, Register of Contributions: Country and Foreign Lodges, 322-420 (1832); 258-335 (1863). Royal Cornwall Gazette, August 19 1871, p1, 1871 census.
How many attended the Royal Cornwall County Races? In 1865, for example, 6,000 were present for the events. Lake’s Falmouth Packet, May 20 1865, p1.
Royal Cornwall Gazette, May 21 1868, p5.
Stanley Weintraub, The Importance of Being Edward: King in Waiting, 1841-901, John Murray, 2000, p156-187.
Cornubian and Redruth Times, May 21 1869, p3.
Royal Cornwall Gazette, August 19 1871, p1; West Briton, October 5 1871, p5.
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar, (Index of Wills and Administrations) 1858-1995. On John’s death, everything reverted to his widowed mother.
As the 1800s progressed from Georgian to Victorian, Britain became increasingly urbanised. People from the countryside migrated to the burgeoning cities in ever greater numbers, and they brought their sports and games with them as well. A city or town’s rhythms, however, are very different from that of a village or hamlet. The working practices, laws and sensibilities generated by the Industrial Revolution meant that many ancient pastimes were gradually superseded by the mass spectator sports we recognise today1.
That other child of the Revolution, the popular press, contributed massively to the eventual cultural dominance of football, rugby and cycling. Tony Collins states that print culture
…not only provided publicity for and voiced the ideological aspects of sport, but the newspaper industry also initiated and organised the development of competition and other structures.
Sport in Capitalist Society: A Short History, Routledge, 2013, p59
Mass sport and the mass press evolved symbiotically; one did not beget the other. It is generally agreed that
…sport and the media are not two separate industries that have been juxtaposed coincidentally. Rather, their evolution, particularly throughout the twentieth century, has resulted in them being inextricably bound together.
Matthew Nicholson, Sport and the Media: Managing the Nexus, Elsevier, 2007, p7
Of course, in the mid-1800s nobody could have known that the new kids on the sporting block – football, rugby and cycling – would come to dominate everyday life. The FA was only formed in 1863, the RFU in 1871. The first mass bike race rolled out of Paris in 1869 – and was won by a Briton.
On the right is James Moore (1849-1935), winner of the 81-mile Paris to Rouen race. He took over ten hours to beat 324 other riders2
Thus the major sport-oriented ‘papers of the day, such as Bell’s Life or the Illustrated Sporting News, gave equal coverage to newer, modern games as well as the older and perhaps less respectable ones. The people who read these journals, watched the games and gambled their income – the sporting ‘fancy’, as they were known – seem to have been equally comfortable with the sight, physically or in print, of soccer or rat-baiting.
And the newspapers gave the public what it wanted. You could read reports of football matches between Richmond and Civil Service College (18 a-side), or Norfolk versus Mackenzie, which lasted two hours3. Like the sound of leather on willow? A fulsome appraisal of the 1862 cricket season would be available for your perusal4.
If your tastes ran more to the louche, you might consider venturing down to the Queen’s Head Tavern in Haymarket. As Bell’s Life promoted in May 1864, the noted dog ‘Pincher’ could be seen there, attempting to kill over 200 rats in ten minutes 30 seconds, ‘the shortest time ever heard of’5.
A London ratting evening. From the Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical and Musical Review, April 2 1864, p41
Bareknuckle prizefighting might have been illegal, but its top exponents enjoyed all the trappings of fame and rejoiced in such brutal nicknames as ‘The Tipton Slasher’6. Big fights, then as now, drew crowds from all levels of society and generated many inches of column.
When Jem Mace knocked Joe Goss cold after over two hours of pugilism for the English middleweight title (and a £1,000 purse) in 1863, Bell’s Life devoted practically an entire page to the build-up, the weigh-in and ‘the mill’ itself7. Its reporter took the opportunity to gleefully remind the reader that prizefighting is not a ‘Carnival of Brutality’, but rather
…one of the mainstays of English character in a muscular Christian point of view.
September 9 1863, p7
Bell’s is not only reporting on sport but attempting to influence the public’s opinion of it, and justify its own coverage. But if the fighters, their entourages, the 400-odd members of the fancy who spectated and Bell’s intrepid correspondent all wanted the fight to go off, the authorities certainly didn’t. Trains took the whole lot of them to a secret location near Royal Wootton Bassett, which was raided by policemen before a punch was thrown. Undeterred, the fight crowd decamped by steam power to Purfleet, where Mace beat Goss to a quivering pulp undisturbed8.
It may not surprise you, but another ancient, rural sport found its way to the metropolis in this period. For a time, it thrived. Less cruel than rat-baiting, less bloody and more lawful than boxing, yet certainly not as genteel as football or cricket, Cornish wrestling was most definitely a part of London’s sporting calendar.
The Cornwall and Devon Wrestling Society, London
Cornish wrestling at Hackney Wick in 1866. From the Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical and Musical Review, April 14 1866, p213
Cornish wrestling came to London in the 1820s and enjoyed popularity through to the 1870s9. Competitions were generally held over Easter or Whitsuntide and promoted, inevitably, in the pages of the sporting press.
By 1845, in an attempt to regulate the sport in its unfamiliar urban surrounds (and combat the Cumberland and Westmorland style of wrestling which had also hit London), a society was formed: The Cornwall and Devon Wrestling Society, or Devon and Cornwall, depending on which side of the Tamar you’re from. Though its competitions were open to all-comers, the Society strictly prohibited the Devonshire style of kicking your opponent in heavy-shod boots:
Sun (London), May 13 1845, p7
The most consistent promoter of Cornish wrestling in London was James Baum10. He was the proprietor of The White Lion pub in Hackney Wick, and owned enough land nearby to encircle a wrestling green with an athletics track. In Easter 1864, the entertainments lasted several days, including several wrestling events, mile racing and a pedestrian race11.
Baum and the Society realised they needed each other. By 1868 the latter had held 51 wrestling tournaments at The White Lion, and convened their meetings within its walls12. Bell’s Life gave Baum’s sporting extravaganzas ample coverage and, as we shall see, contributed to the success of competitions and bouts.
A governing body, a set of regulations, a more-or-less fixed venue, a capital investor and media promotion: London’s Cornish wrestling in the 1860s suddenly took on the trappings of a modern, commercial sport. This isn’t the place, though, to discuss why it declined, which in any case has been done admirably elsewhere13. What is pertinent here is to demonstrate how Cornish wrestling in 1860s London was so successful, and to realise this we need to trace the career of one of the ring’s leading lights: Joseph Menear.
Will wrestle any man in London – or the world
The White Lion, Hackney Wick, Easter 1862. Note the wrestlers in the background14
Joseph Menear (or Minear) was born in November 1837 at Tregonissey, near St Austell. His father was a miner15. Joseph stated he was one too when we find him on the 1861 census, lodging at Buckfastleigh. He was certainly only passing through Devon. In March 1861, Joseph’s wrestling at Hackney Wick. In May, he’s winning a £6 (or £600 in 2025) first prize at the Whitsuntide meet in front of a crowd of 1,80016. By September he’s sufficiently confident in his ability to place the following in Bell’s:
J. Menear will wrestle any man in London at catch weights in the Cornish and Devon style, for £5 or £10 a side. Menear can always be found at Mr Pace’s, Plough and Harrow, Battersea Fields.
September 15 1861, p7
Though Hackney Wick was his venue of choice, Joseph would always follow the money. In 1862, with his brother John also on the card, he took the first prize of £3 at Manor House Gardens, Walworth. In 1864 he featured at The King’s Arms on Whitechapel Road. Five hundred of the fancy were to be treated to a double-bill of boxing and wrestling17.
Menear was astute enough to get himself a backer, or manager, and promote himself via the media. Clearly, he was as good for Bell’s as they were for him. If the below excerpt is anything to go by, he also knew the meaning of the word hyperbole:
Bell’s Life, May 4 1862, p6
The organisation Joseph operated under enjoyed considerable patronage too. Prince Albert Edward, the future Edward VII, was also Duke of Cornwall and a great lover of sport. Many Cornish societies enjoyed increased exposure with a royal member of the fancy as a figurehead.
‘Bertie’: a Victorian trendsetter with charm to burn and a roving eye18
For example, one of the prizes at 1865’s Royal Cornwall Regatta was a ‘Duke of Cornwall’s’ cup, valued at £50 (or over £5K in 2025)19. The Cornwall County Races, held near St Columb in the 1860s, annually awarded its own Duke of Cornwall’s cup to a victorious jockey. In 1868, a Mr Sobey, riding on ‘Why Not’, received another Duke of Cornwall’s cup – but that’s a tale for another time20.
The Cornwall and Devon Wrestling Society did well from this royal benefactor too. For the Hackney Wick meet of Easter 1863 it was announced that
…not the least interesting event, however, will be the extra “Great Duke of Cornwall Cup” in honour of the patron of the society…
Bell’s Life, March 29 1863, p6
Bell’s further stated that the cup competition was exclusively confined to ‘natives’ of Cornwall. It’s easy to imagine Menear reading this in his digs at the Plough and Harrow (after all, that’s where he could always be found), and nodding his head in resolve. Now, that was surely a prize for any Cornishman to covet.
The wrestling cup, or goblet, is on your right. From the Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical and Musical Review, April 11 1863, p1
Three thousand spectators convened at The White Lion’s grounds on Monday, 6 April for two days of action. The preliminary wrestling bouts had taken place on the previous Friday, with Menear progressing easily, all the way to the final bout on Tuesday evening. Menear’s fellow combatant was to be a Devon man. As insufficient Cornish entrants had materialised, the organisers had thrown the competition open to wrestlers from Cornwall’s nearest neighbour21.
The Devon man, as Menear discovered, was no chump. As darkness fell and the crowds dwindled, it became evident there wasn’t going to be a conclusive winner. Who took home the Duke of Cornwall’s cup came down to the toss of a coin.
Menear called incorrectly. The Devon man won the prize22. A Cornish prize.
Menear must have been livid. If he’d lost fair and square, the pill might have been sugared somewhat, but to lose by mere chance? That would cut you deep. Menear probably had to stand there and applaud as the victor held the cup aloft.
The victor, from Devon, was John Slade.
Thus began London’s great wrestling rivalry.
A fight for the very heart and soul of wrestling
John Slade. From the Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical and Musical Review, April 7 1866, p201
Skip forward. In 2000 Cornwall’s most successful wrestler of his generation, Gerry Cawley, came out of retirement. His mission was to defeat Glyn Jones, who had held the Cornish heavyweight belt for the previous two years. Nothing wrong there, you might say, were it not for the fact that Jones was from Devon, and a formidable black belt judoka to boot. Obviously, some felt it was time the title was returned to a pure wrestling Cornishman23.
Gerry in 2017
The BBC made a documentary of Gerry’s quest (there was no fairy tale ending; Jones won), the preview of which bombastically states
…what is at stake is more than just personal pride – some say it is a fight for the very heart and soul of the sport itself…24
Gerry states in the film that
I would like to take the belt, there’s no two ways about that, just for the sake of the sport, and to make sure there was a Cornish wrassler as the champion.25
Rewinding to the 1860s, it’s not unreasonable to assume Joseph Menear held similar sentiments toward the Duke of Cornwall’s cup, and to John Slade.
Slade had pedigree, and must have come to London at around the same time as Menear, where it was noted of him that he was
…the holder of the Champion Wrestling Belt of the West of England, and is a well-known player in that part of the country.
Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical and Musical Review, April 11 1863, p52
On the same page in Bell’s as publicity for the forthcoming slugfest between Tom King and John C. Heenan, was news of Menear’s challenge to Slade for the cup26. Menear called for £10 a side and had stumped up £2 out of his own wallet to move things along. This was all in keeping with the Society’s dictates as regards the cup. If Slade retained the trophy at next Easter’s meet, it was his to keep. In the meantime he had to ‘hold himself in readiness’ for a best-of-three backs challenge issued via – where else? – Bell’s, at six weeks’ notice. The Society also stipulated that any challenge match was to be held at The White Lion, Hackney Wick27.
Sport thrives on rivalries, challenges and controversies. It maintains public interest in that sport, inspires others to try their hand, and keeps the coffers – of both governing bodies and events organisers – full. The sport media thrives on rivalries too, but also foments them at the same time as being profitable to the industry itself. It was good for Joseph Menear and John Slade. It was good for The Cornwall and Devon Wrestling Society. It was good for James Baum. It was good for Bell’s. It was good for an entertainment-hungry public. Everybody won.
The match was set for Monday June 8 – Whitsuntide. Bell’s talked it up:
…these renowned champions will enter the ring to decide the point of the champion “wrestler” of the famed “two counties”…Slade, a proud Devonian…Joseph Menear, who has earned, and justly so, the title of “Pride of Cornwall”…an exhibition of the “ancient pastime” will take place, which bids fair to eclipse all others.
June 7 1863, p3
Bell’s was right about it getting dark. Before a ‘strong muster’ at Hackney Wick, hostilities commenced at 6pm. Three hours later, they were still at it. Slade had reckoned on disposing of Menear quickly, but the latter was more than his match. No clean backs were made, but as time wore on, and the numerous ‘dog falls’ stacked up, it became increasingly evident that Menear had the greater stamina.
The failing light forced a premature end to the bout, but there was to be no coin-toss this time. Menear was confident, and Slade ‘much distressed’ as the rematch was set for Saturday June 20. The Bell’s columnist could barely hide his delight:
The champions having played in such magnificent style…adds much additional interest to the match among those who are admirers of the sport…
June 14 1863, p6
‘Deerfoot’ or, to give him his actual name, Louis Bennett, was a descendant of the Seneca Indians who found fame as an athlete at Hackney Wick28
This time round, Menear was in fine fettle, and Slade, the fancy reckoned, looked off-colour. They weren’t wrong. Forty minutes in, Menear gained a dominant grip on Slade’s jacket, and slammed him on to the turf. Menear was hunting one more back like that, and the Duke of Cornwall’s cup would be his. Slade may have been unfit, and he may have been hurt, but he was still a winner. The only thing for it now was all-out attack.
Slade attacked for over an hour, but to no avail. Menear’s first back proved to be the winner, and would later see Slade hospitalised. With a severely bruised side, the Devon man had to retire. Menear had brought it home29.
Then the war of words began.
Champion wrestler of Cornwall and Devon
Joseph Menear in 1864, with the Duke of Cornwall’s cup. The impressions, of Menear and Deerfoot, come from photographs taken by George Newbold, who appears to have made a good thing out of London’s sporting scene30
As soon as Slade was able, he was challenging Menear, but on his own terms:
Bell’s Life, August 23 1863, p7
Menear could brush off the challenge. Under the Society’s rules, any wrestler of 11st and above was a heavyweight. Menear wrestled as such, and had moreover won the cup at that weight31. Surely a mere challenger should accept the terms of the champion? Menear certainly thought so.
It’s probable the two men never wrestled each other again. Even in 1867 there was talk of a wrestling ‘superfight’, with Slade and Menear supposed to meet at The Spotted Dog on The Strand, and agree to terms. But nothing came of it32.
Slade would haunt Menear. At the Society’s 51st Hackney Wick meet in 1868, he was present when Joseph stepped on to the turf for the title bout against another St Austell man, W. Harper. Each could appoint an umpire; Menear selected his brother. Harper, perhaps aware of the two men’s animosity, asked Slade to protect his interests. It initially proved a canny move:
After they had been wrestling two minutes, Slade objected to Menear’s hold…
Bell’s Life, April 18 1868, p10
Menear, who surely by now had seen it all, was probably anticipating something of the sort from Slade, and wouldn’t be phased. Indeed, the piece of gamesmanship appears to have fired him up. A minute later, Harper was on his back, and Menear was acclaimed ‘Champion of the London ring’ for the eighth time running. One imagines he gave Slade the eye33.
Even in the 1880s, Slade was still sniping at Menear in print, claiming he was the better man34.
In London wrestling terms, though, Menear was the better man. His prowess was unmatched. His fame reached back to Cornwall, where he was the star draw at a Marazion tournament in 1868. To be honest, the Cornish scene needed a boost:
Cornish wrestling within the last 20 years has fallen very much into disuse in the county where one would expect to find it at home.
Bell’s Life, May 2 1868, p7
As Menear’s sojourn to the land of his birth illustrates, the top grappling talent was no longer to be found in Cornwall, but in London. Problem was, Menear was too good for the city scene as well.
No better known place in all London
The White Lion, Wick Road, Hackney, 2013. The original caption for this image understandably reads ‘another dead pub’35
As early as 1866, Easter crowds at Hackney Wick had dwindled to just 1,00036. Although to a ‘certain section of provincials’,
…there is no better known place in all London than Mr Baum’s recreation grounds…
Uxbridge and West Drayton Gazette, March 3 1868, p7
…more seasoned city dwellers were patently looking elsewhere for their sport. Menear’s wrestling dominance throughout The White Lion’s heyday may have been a contributory factor. If sport becomes predictable – and Menear being victorious was getting pretty predictable – it ceases to be entertaining. The Society, perhaps sensing this, met in May 1868. Unbelievably, there were calls to bar Menear from their next meet, in a quest for a new champion. The Society must have forgotten just who had put their name in lights these past few years, but in the end a slightly less cynical solution was sought. They would find a man, that could beat the man37.
One who did offer his services was John Slade, but as before, no bout materialised38. Though his older brother John wrestled at Hackney Wick in June 1868, Joseph wasn’t present. He wrestled sporadically on into the 1870s, but his glory days were over. By 1880, he and his old foe were umpiring a tournament at Lambeth Baths39.
In the 1921 census, Joseph was living alone in Hackney, yesterday’s man, a retired night watchman. He died in 1923, aged 8640.
The White Lion is permanently closed, the days when it was one of London’s premier sporting attractions practically forgotten41.
The trophy with which Joseph’s name is forever linked – the Duke of Cornwall’s cup – had been bequeathed him by the Society in recognition of his achievements42. Sadly, it appears to have been lost, yet one hopes that, some day, it will show up. Such things do happen. In fact a Cornish trophy from the 1860s was discovered in California in June 2025. Read all about that by clicking here…
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Early 1920s Cornwall must have been a tough place. Men were returning home from the trenches only to leave again as the mining industry collapsed. Dolcoath Mine laid off 200 men in November 1920; most of them left for Canada days later1. By 1921 there were 3,000 unemployed miners in Cornwall. The solution was plain:
…our local distress may become even more acute, unless mitigated by emigration, and if any miner has a chance to leave the county or the country, he will be wise to take it.
Cornishman, June 22 1921, p5
Not all left to work underground. Some were lucky enough to have talent in another area, which might prove just as lucrative, and hopefully not as hazardous. That area was rugby football, and several men in post-war Cornwall left to seek their fortune as professionals with the northern union or, after 1922, the rugby league.
As with part one, this is a work in progress, and I hope to uncover more untold stories along the way.
Ernest Rodda in 1919, shortly before going north. Courtesy Pam Best
The son of a grocer from Crowan and the brother of miners, Ernest Rodda (though sometimes his christian name is given as Nick) became a miner himself. He also grew into a formidable forward for Camborne, taking his playing (and underground) skills to South Africa. In the immediate post-war era he was rapidly capped for Cornwall, and took part in two international trials3.
Signing for Rochdale Hornets in early 1920, he played alongside another former Camborne player who had gone north before the war, Sam Carter4. Tragically for Ernest, he was to play no part in the Hornets’ 1922 Challenge Cup glory. A leg injury sustained in March 1922 put him out for the rest of the season5. But there was worse to come.
By the opening of the 1922-23 season, Ernest, though recognised in Rochdale as a ‘grand player’ was still not fit6. In fact, his career was over, and his leg had to be amputated. He entered the licensing trade, managing the Eagle Hotel in Rochdale with his wife. Ernest died in 19367.
William J McLean (1896-1977), Camborne RFC
One cap for Cornwall, 1920
McLean in 1919. Ernest Rodda was a team-mate. Courtesy Pam Best
Illogan boy William John McLean (sometimes MacLean) was a surface worker at a mine from his mid-teens. During the war, he was stationed in Egypt, and played rugby for the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry against a battalion of Welshmen. McLean missed a chance to score, but the Cornishmen still won8.
McLean was a scrum-half, standing 5ft 7 and weighing only 10 stone 8. He must have been an opportunistic kind of player, as reports have him attempting snap drop-goals. His one chance for Cornwall came in February 1919, but William had little to do behind a big Cornish pack intent on keeping the ball. Little good it did them; Devon won 13-39.
By the summer of 1920, he was a northern union player for Rochdale, though the 1921 census captures him on a visit to Cornwall. William stated that he was an unemployed foundry labourer. Of course, he would have had match fees from the Hornets to keep him afloat10.
There would have been one or two familiar faces in Lancashire, such as Sam Carter and Ernest Rodda, but William didn’t settle. In 1925 he and his family emigrated to America. William found a job with the Anaconda Copper Mining Co., and the McLeans resided in Butte, Montana11.
One war wasn’t enough for William. In 1942 he was drafted, along with his son, William Donald, who had been born in Camborne in 192312. In June 1944, William Donald was a fifth grade technician, or radio operator, in occupied France. When shellfire severed his company’s communication lines, he volunteered to break cover and repair the damages, being severely injured in the subsequent shelling.
He survived, and was awarded the Bronze Star, the news reaching Cornwall13.
William John died in 1977; William Donald in 1984. Father and son lived out their lives in Butte1.
Tommy Harris (1896-1962), Redruth RFC
Six caps for Cornwall, 1919-20
Tommy in 1922. Courtesy Rochdale Hornets Heritage Archive
The northern union agents disguised as Devon fans – and keeping their broad Lancastrian accents under wraps – must have thought he was worth pursuing. They were at Plymouth in November 1920 watching Devon’s pack dominate Cornwall’s in an 8-3 victory, but one Cornish forward definitely caught the eye. What would he be like on the front foot? they must have wondered. Exchanging nods and winks, the northern men resolved to get their man. But they needed to be quick, and they needed to make a good offer. Other agents from other clubs were abroad, and it was only a matter of time before one of their competitors approached him.
They caught up with their quarry at the Cornwall team’s hotel, and offered him £250 there and then if he would sign. However their tense negotiations were blown by the team secretary, who ended up chasing one of the agents down a Plymouth street. The player said no – for now15.
Unperturbed, the Lancastrians set off for Cornwall. They must have spoken to their parent club on the way down. Look, this chap’s the real deal, we’ve got to get him, a star in the making… The club in question, Rochdale Hornets, must have given the green light. Up the offer.
The sought-after player was Redruth’s Tommy Harris. He had previously played for St Day and the army (one being preparation for the other), and was noted to have a ‘splendid physique’16. Cornwall had played Devon on Saturday November 27. By Tuesday the 30th, Harris was on a train to Rochdale, a cheque for a cool £300 in his pocket, and a guarantee of a job as a brick setter17. In 2025, Tommy’s £300 is worth £11,600.
The Hornets were putting together a monster pack. Sam Carter and Devon’s Dickie Paddon were now experienced veterans. Ernest Rodda looked a good investment. Recent acquisitions included Louis Corsi and Dai Edwards from Wales. The missing piece of the jigsaw was Tommy Harris. Here’s his profile:
…one of the finest scrimmagers the Hornets have ever had. A rare tackler and a terror to opposing backs by reason of his hustling tactics. The right type of man for a gruelling cup-tie.
Rochdale Times, April 26 1922, p7
He certainly was the right man. In the 1922 Challenge Cup Final, Rochdale beat Hull 10-9 in front of 35,000 fans at Headingley18. It was their first – and, to date, only – success in the competition.
Further glory awaited. In October 1924 Tommy represented the England rugby league team against Other Nationalities at Headingley. The news was heard in Cornwall, and old friends could read of Tommy’s prowess as a
…sturdy Western scrummager…he had played regularly for Cornwall, and was regarded as that county’s crack forward.
Cornubian and Redruth Times, October 30 1924, p6
It was Tommy’s only England cap. Nevertheless he was Cornwall’s first rugby league international.
After a spell as a newsagent in Oldham, Tommy returned to Redruth in 1931. With the same sense of the appropriate as Sam Carter, Tommy honoured the town that had made his career by naming his fine Mount Ambrose house ‘Rochdale’19. He ran his own timber business and was an active Methodist, later becoming a member of the Home Guard.
Tommy died in 1962, a respected and upstanding member of Redruth’s community20. But there was one thing he wasn’t able to do. As an ex-professional, he could never visit his old club again.
Edwin Pascoe (1902-1973), Camborne RFC
Uncapped
Pascoe in 1919, alongside Ernest Rodda and William McLean. Courtesy Pam Best
Edwin Pascoe was born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, to parents from Redruth. In 1921 he was an apprentice engineer at Holmans, and a flying wing for Camborne RFC21.
Exactly when he signed for Rochdale Hornets is currently unknown, but he certainly went, and he was certainly back in Cornwall by 1927. In December of that year his amateur status had been reinstated, and he was permitted to play soccer for Falmouth AFC. He died in 197322.
Ernie ‘Tatsie’ Wills (c1895-1936), Camborne RFC
Four caps for Cornwall, 1918-21
Early 1920s Rochdale had a burgeoning Cornish community, all centred round the town’s rugby club. Besides the signings at the very beginning of the 1900s, Sam Carter and Tom Morrissey still had connections with the Hornets, and then there was Ernest Rodda, William McLean, Edwin Pascoe and Tommy Harris. We can imagine them gathering in Sam’s pub, The Golden Fleece, to talk over old times23.
In late 1922 Camborne’s full-back Ernie ‘Tatsie’ Wills made the journey to Lancashire too, along with his wife and infant son. Noted as a ‘sound tackler with a good kick’, he was good enough for Cornwall and good enough to guest for Plymouth Albion24.
Rochdale’s agents must have reckoned he was good enough for them too. Ernie reputedly received, in cash, £350 to sign for the Hornets. That’s over £17K in 2025. This money must have felt like a big sigh of relief for Ernie. Before the agents came knocking, he had been an unemployed miner25.
For whatever reason, Ernie decided that rugby league wasn’t to his liking, and the family returned to Cornwall in around 1930. The money appears to have evaporated too, because Ernie went back to work underground.
In 1936 he was killed instantly in a fall of ground on the 90 fathom level at Porkellis Mine. He left a widow and two children26.
Fred Rule came from Miners’ Row, Redruth, and had the same social background as the previous Cornish codebreakers28.
He was a precocious talent as a fly-half, making himself a regular for the outstanding Redruth side of the 1930s:
The embodiment of Cornish rugby. From the Nostalgic Redruth Facebook page
He was a Cornwall regular too, but it came as something of a shock in the spring of 1933 when Halifax snapped him up. It was an offer Fred couldn’t refuse: £300 to sign on, and wages of £4/week. Nearly as surprising in retrospect is the reaction of Redruth RFC and the CRFU:
At a meeting at Redruth, today, Cornwall Rugby Executive decided to send a letter of thanks to Rule for his services to Cornish rugby.
Cornishman, April 6 1933, p12
At a Redruth committee meeting later that year, it was said that
Rule was a magnificent footballer…He seemed to have further honours before him. Rule’s loss would be severely felt, but no one blamed him for the step he took. He had the best wishes of his fellow players, the club committee and supporters.
West Briton, July 20 1933, p6
Fred was 21, stood 5ft 9, weighed 11st 4 and marked for great things in rugby league29. Halifax got him a job on the buses and waited for their investment to pay off30. A crowd of 10,000 watched his debut against St Helens. Fred
…made a striking debut…He scored a sparkling try, and was in many good moves…
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, April 10 1933, p15
But it seems Fred couldn’t quite settle. From being Halifax’s playmaker, in 1934 we find him in a very different role on the wing, as the club experimented with a new half-back pairing31. A knee injury in 1936 put him in the infirmary, and by 1937 he was on Halifax’s transfer list32. Fred survived, but was on the fringes and missed out on his club’s 1938 Challenge Cup triumph.
In 1946, he requested a transfer himself, and a year later suffered the ignominy of Halifax putting him up for a free transfer33.
Fred’s experience of both codes stood him in good stead, and he was appointed coach of the Halifax rugby union team in 194934. Clearly union clubs in league’s northern stronghold weren’t too fussy about the amateur credentials of their training staff. Even at this stage of his career Fred was noted as being
…unsurpassed for versatility, enthusiasm and skill.
Fred Bone was the son of a tin smelter from Radnor, and later worked at East Pool Mine himself36. As a rugby player he was a scrum-half schoolboy international, who went on to represent a combined Devon and Cornwall XV against the 1935 All Blacks. The latter won in Devonport 35-6, but the tourists reckoned Bone
…the best scrum half they played against during their recent tour…
Daily Mirror, February 14 1936, p29
Players don’t come more highly recommended than that. Halifax, possibly shopping around for a player to partner Fred Rule, acquired the 5ft 8, 11 stone 23 year-old in 193637. Such a player wasn’t cheap, but Halifax clearly had their chequebook out in the mid 1930s. They offered the star Welsh fly-half Will Davies a £1,000 (£61K in 2025) fee to sign, which he declined. Bone’s fee was unspecified, but from what Halifax were prepared to offer Davies, he must have done very well from the arrangement38.
Redruth and the CRFU may have been able to force grins and give Fred Rule a glorious send off, but as far as I’m aware Bone’s decision to switch codes garnered no such reaction. Indeed, it was seen as a ‘big loss’ to Cornish rugby39.
For all the hype, Fred sadly failed to live up to expectations. Barely a year after arriving in Halifax, he had been transferred to Batley. By the autumn of 1938, Batley had him on their transfer list too. Though he had a steady job in Halifax riveting boilers, Fred and his wife Lily returned to Cornwall40.
As an ex-professional rugby league player, you would have thought that Fred could have no involvement with his old union club, Redruth. Officially, this is true, but Fred seems to have found a loophole. Here’s the Redruth Reserves XV of 1955, the detail of which heads this section. Fred is standing, far left:
Nick Serpell spoke with a Redruth fan of the era who recalled that Fred joined the St John Ambulance Brigade, and obviously ensured he was on-hand to provide first aid (with a healthy dose of encouragement and advice, no doubt) on match days. He may have even been a kind of unofficial trainer. Other photos from the time confirm Fred was a member of Redruth’s St John branch41.
You have to admire Fred’s ingenuity and cheek. He died in 196542.
Francis St Clair Gregory (1910-1986), Redruth RFC
11 caps for Cornwall, 1933-35
Gregory in his Warrington days. From his Wikipedia entry
One of Cornwall’s greatest sportspeople certainly had humble beginnings. The 1921 census tells us that young Francis was living in St Wenn, near Bodmin. His father was already dead, and his mother was a charwoman. By 1936, aged 24, he was 5ft 11 and a chunky 14 stone. He was also a champion Cornish and all-in wrestler as well as a star forward for Redruth43.
In fact, it’s difficult to decide exactly which sport Gregory demonstrated more aptitude for. Even the man himself was unsure. As he said in 1965,
Rugby was a tough sport in those days. I suppose Rugby helped my wrestling and wrestling helped my Rugby – a bit of each.
Qtd in Cornish Wrestling: A History, by Mike Tripp, Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, 2023, p126
As a Cornish wrestler, Francis was rarely defeated, generally as a heavyweight. When he toured Brittany as part of a team in 1930, he was the only Cornishman to win in his weight category, a rare feat. After visiting the town in Brittany of the same name, he adopted the sobriquet ‘St Clair’, and as Francis St Clair Gregory he took up professional all-in wrestling.
Most famously, his November 1955 bout with Mike Marino was the first live broadcast of British professional wrestling, and he continued the sport until 1963, when he became a Manchester publican44.
Throughout the 1950s he grappled with wrestlers who rejoiced in such ring names as ‘The Dark Owl’, ‘The Wrestling Witch Doctor’ and ‘Count Bartelli’45. My personal favourite is Count Bartelli, who was in fact a man called Geoff Condliffe, from Crewe. Here he is:
Courtesy British Wrestling Archive 1960-1900, Facebook. Condliffe died in 199346
Like the two Freds, Rule and Bone, Gregory’s signing for Wigan in the summer of 1936 was a keenly-felt loss to Cornish rugby. He had been a ‘tower of strength’ for Redruth, and had also represented Devon and Cornwall against the 1935 All Blacks. As a local celebrity, crowds of team mates and fans gathered at Redruth railway station to cheer off the man regarded as
…one of the strongest and cleverest forwards in the country.
West Briton, August 27 1936, p11
Francis represented Wigan on 49 occasions, and then on a further 79 occasions for Warrington. Unfortunately neither club won the Challenge Cup during his playing years, but he did represent England against Wales in 193947.
When pushing for international rugby recognition, Francis would still wrestle. In early 1939 he tackled ‘The Black Eagle’ at Whitley Bay, his fame in one discipline drawing a big crowd in the other. He lived on in Manchester, dying there in 198648.
Union’s loss was league’s gain.
Spencer Vibart (1919-1999), Camborne RFC
Seven caps for Cornwall, 1937
Spencer Vibart’s father was St Austell cricket club’s professional, at a time when such a job was poorly paid (and obviously seasonal)49. In his early teens Spencer was a local flyweight boxer, taking on the wonderfully named Nipper Rowe in 1934:
Vibart put his face in the way of a hot left in the third, and got his nose coloured…Rowe floored him for two with a right and left to the jaw…
Cornish Post and Mining News, January 13 1934, p6
Somehow Spencer scraped a draw, and he must have beefed up his frame rapidly. Aged just 18 in 1937, he was selected as a forward for Cornwall following some muscular games for Camborne RFC50. But his union career was brief. By August 1938, he had signed for Salford, at the time standing 5ft 11 and weighing 13 stone51.
War was to interrupt Spencer’s playing career, and by 1940 he had joined the Navy. But he did get the chance to play union again. As the amateur/professional distinctions were relaxed during the conflict, he played a charity game at Camborne in 1944. By the 1950s, he was a Plymouth policeman, yet Spencer’s fame came in another area52.
He established a reputation as a record-breaking bass fisherman, his hauls making the national newspapers. He returned to Camborne, and died there in 199953.
Jack Knowles (1914-2007), Redruth RFC, Camborne RFC
Six caps for Cornwall, 1936-37
Camborne RFC were looking forward to the 1938-39 season with some optimism. With the exception of Spencer Vibart, their squad was largely unchanged and over the past few seasons had been bolstered by talent from arch-rivals Redruth.
The talent in question was centre Alfred Solomon, the son of legendary Bert, and Renfred John ‘Jack’ Knowles, a wing who knew where the try-line was. In those years, to leave Redruth for Camborne or vice versa took genuine courage. Such a decision could see you sent to Coventry, or worse. Alfred Solomon never played for Cornwall; it’s believed the Redruth-dominated CRFU would never condone selecting the turncoat Solomon54.
Knowles had won caps for Cornwall, and Camborne anticipated another playing year of high scoring with him and Solomon in the back line. Yet in early September all this unravelled, as it was announced that Knowles had played in a trial for Batley, breaking his hand in the process but showing enough of his worth for the rugby league club to quickly snap him up. Though ‘his many friends’ wished him success, the news was another blow to Cornish rugby55.
At the time Jack was the 24 year-old son of a St Day labourer. He stood 5ft 7 and weighed 11 stone. He had Cornwall rugby honours as a schoolboy and, as a featherweight wrestler, was Cornish champion in 1935 and had toured Brittany. After three seasons with Redruth he had joined Camborne56.
Jack only played 16 games for Batley. By the time war broke out, he was back in Camborne, managing a gents’ outfitters, but wasn’t there for long. He saw service in Africa, rising to the rank of sergeant, and was discharged in 1946. He died in 200757.
(With thanks to Nick Serpell.)
Harry Glanville (1921-1992), Camborne RFC
Uncapped
Glanville in 1946. Courtesy John Collins
In 1939 Harry Glanville was a plumber’s apprentice in Camborne58. He doesn’t appear to have played rugby until after the war, when he was a full-back of some note. Against a West Cornwall XV in 1946 he
…kicked well and displayed great coolness in going down to the rushes by the Cornish forwards.
Cornishman May 2 1946, p6
By the end of the 1945-46 season, he was Camborne’s ‘star’ player59. In June 1947 he signed for Oldham, thus paving the way for a certain John Collins to take over at full-back for Camborne60.
Harry only made 20 appearances for Oldham, being put on the transfer list in 1950. He died in Manchester in 199261.
Graham Paul (born 1934), Penzance-Newlyn RFC
12 caps for Cornwall, 1957-58
Hull KR’s latest signing, 1958. Courtesy Graham Paul
The son of a laundry worker, Graham Paul grew up in a cramped Penzance terrace62. He joined the RAF aged 17, and qualified as a PTI. Eventually being based at RAF St Mawgan, he played rugby as a fly-half for Penzance-Newlyn, forming a deadly partnership with Peter Michell.
Picked as a duo for Cornwall’s 1957-58 County Championship campaign, the team famously made it all the way to the final, against Warwickshire at Coventry. The game has since gone down as the toughest final ever played. Graham created Cornwall’s only try, but missed snap attempts at drop-goals.
It was at this point that Graham found himself at a crossroads. His time in the RAF was nearly up, and his roots would count against him gaining further recognition as a rugby player. As he told me,
I didn’t have the background. You done okay, but you’ve come out of Daniel Place, and they’re never going to let you forget it.
An upcountry union club who Graham had played for in the early 1950s got in touch, quietly offering him a teaching job if he would play for them again. Using this as a bargaining tool, Graham spoke to Penzance-Newlyn, who told him to drop the whole thing.
Soon, he was getting phone calls from a rugby league agent, and accepted a generous signing on fee from Hull KR in early 1958. His team mates were awestruck at the news. Hull concluded Graham’s amazing speed off the mark would be better served on the wing, and he scored over 100 tries for the club. In the process, the press christened him ‘The Cornish Express’. In 1964, he played in (and lost) the Challenge Cup Final at Wembley, in front of 80,000 fans:
Courtesy Phil Westren
Graham and his family returned to Cornwall in 1965, but it wasn’t until 1991 that he was permitted to enter his old union club again. Even then, it took a Cornishman on the RFU committee, Bill Bishop, to fix it.
Graham and his wife Helena live quietly in Newlyn.
Jimmy Jenkin (1930-2002), Penzance-Newlyn RFC
21 caps for Cornwall, 1950-58
Jimmy Jenkin when with the Pirates. From his club profile
If Graham Paul was unlucky to play in two finals and lose both, Jimmy Jenkin was doubly so. A schoolteacher from Mousehole, Jenkin made over 300 appearances for Penzance-Newlyn before signing for Hull KR shortly after Graham made the move himself. These blows rocked the union club, but as one of their committee admitted,
The club did what they could, but they could not compete with the offers that Rugby League clubs were able to make.
West Briton, June 18 1959, p2
Before this, Jimmy as a Cornwall regular had hoped to make the 1957-58 County Championship, but injury ruled him out. He also missed out on the 1964 Challenge Cup final.
He retired from rugby in 1967, taking a teaching post in Sidmouth, and died there in 200263.
…and in 1995 with St Ives CC. Courtesy St Ives CC, Facebook
As much a cricketer as a rugby player, Ivor Phillips was a tyro wing for St Ives in the late 1950s. He scored for the club in their famous victory over Cardiff in 1958 (only the second time the Welsh XV lost in Cornwall), and then scored all 13 points in a victory over Hayle in 1959: two tries, two conversions and a penalty64.
He was picked to play against Gloucestershire in the 1960-61 County Championship (having previously featured in two friendlies), but never made it. Having shortly been released from National Service in the Royal Marines (and representing the Combined Services XV in Italy), he signed for Warrington in late 196065.
Sadly, over the best part of five years Ivor only made eight full appearances, and was transferred to Swinton in 196566.
Ivor returned to Cornwall, becoming a stalwart of St Ives CC. He now lives in Plymouth.
Ivor Phillips is, to the best of my knowledge, the last Cornish rugby codebreaker. Between 1899 and 1960, 24 Cornishmen – that we know of – left rugby union to join the rugby league. This has been their story.
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Cornish Post and Mining News, November 6 1920, p5.
Appearances for Cornwall are taken from Tom Salmon’s The First Hundred Years: The Story of Rugby Football in Cornwall, CRFU, 1983, although there are some errors. McLean’s one cap for Cornwall came in 1920, not 1919. Ivor Phillips played twice, not once.
1901 and 1911 census; Western Morning News, February 2 1920 p3; West Briton, February 5 1920, p3; October 29 1936, p7.
1939 England and Wales Register, line 17, schedule 169, Kenn/Halifax, registration district 496/2.
Halifax Evening Courier, September 14 1934, p6.
Halifax Evening Courier, May 11 1936, p7; Leeds Mercury, January 30 1937, p9.
Halifax Evening Courier, January 29 1946, p4, April 10 1947, p2.
Halifax Evening Courier, August 4 1948, p4.
England and Wales Civil Registration Death Index 1916-2007, vol. 4, p1020.
1921 census.
Hull Daily Mail, February 14 1936, p19.
Halifax Evening Courier, February 22 1936, p12.
Western Mail, February 14 1936, p3.
Halifax Evening Courier, May 29 1937, p12; Western Morning News, October 8 1938, p14; 1939 England and Wales Register, line 31, schedule 105, Kenn/Halifax, registration district 496/2.
Shields Daily News, January 31 1939, p6; England and Wales Civil Registration Death Index 1916-2007, vol. 38, p1219.
1921 census.
West Briton, October 14 1937, p8.
Cornish Post and Mining News, August 20 1938, p5; Leeds Mercury, August 27 1938, p11.
Cornishman, August 8 1940, p3, January 6 1944, p8; West Briton, July 23 1959, p2.
Sunday Express, June 9 1968, p28; England and Wales Civil Registration Death Index 1916-2007, register #D55, district 3551, entry #118.
Cornishman, August 25 1938, p3; Bert Solomon: A Rugby Phenomenon, by Allen Buckley, Truran, 2007, p45.
Cornishman September 1 1938, p6.
1921 census; Leeds Mercury, August 22 1938, p11; Cornishman, September 1 1938, p6. Reports also state that Jack had scored 41 tries for Camborne the previous season, but this cannot be confirmed. The tally is only mentioned in relation to his signing for Batley, and Reg Parnell, with 36 tries in 1926-27, has long been recognised as Camborne’s top try scorer until Dave Weeks scored 39 in 1985-86. See: https://the-cornish-historian.com/2025/04/26/camborne-rfcs-top-try-scorers/
See: https://batleybulldogs.co.uk/batley-rlfc-heritage-roll-of-honour/; 1939 England and Wales Register, line 7, schedule 154, Camborne-Redruth, registration district Redruth 299-2; UK, British Army World War Two Medal Cards, 1939-1945 for Renfred Knowles. Ancestry, Public Member Photos and Scanned Documents, Renfred Knowles.
1939 England and Wales Register, line 9, schedule 12, Camborne-Redruth, registration district Redruth 299-1.
On June 9 2025 the Wigan and Great Britain rugby league legend Billy Boston was honoured with a knighthood. It is the first knighthood for a rugby league player ever and was only bestowed after extensive lobbying. The Rugby Football League had told the BBC in May that its players had been ‘poorly treated’ by the honours system.1 That only one rugby league player has so far received such official recognition for his achievements ought to come as no surprise.
‘There is no parallel in the history of sport’, observes Tony Collins, ‘for rugby union’s hostility to league’2. Outside of its northern heartlands, the game of rugby league, its clubs, players, administrators and fans were all seen as pariahs by the Establishment. The ‘Establishment’ is taken in this sense to imply the public school and university educated men who, by and large, ran rugby union from its base in southern England and the home counties. But this could obviously be extended to those in more influential corridors of power, particularly when we consider that it’s taken 130 years for a league player to receive a knighthood.
Billy Boston scored 478 tries in 488 matches for Wigan, pointing the way for other black sportspeople. From BBC News
Those who forsook rugby union for league were, before the former went professional in the 1990s, completely ostracised by the RFU. Signing for a league (or, before 1922) northern union club meant a life ban from the RFU. Even playing for an amateur league club carried this penalty. And life meant just that. Retired players who had switched codes were still not permitted to enter union clubs or, indeed, fraternise with union players. Like those poor unfortunates in 1930s Russia who were alleged to have betrayed Comrade Stalin, they were written out of history, or worse.
This happened in Cornwall too. Throughout the history of Cornish rugby, its players who left the Cornwall RFU (CRFU) to join the northern union or rugby league were judged to be beyond the pale and forgotten.
But when you think about it, these men were merely part of that much celebrated phenomenon, the great Cornish migration3. Like the Cousin Jacks and Cousin Jennies who migrated into England or emigrated abroad to find work, so did Cornwall’s rugby codebreakers. They backed their talent and their muscles – just like the others. They left because of lack of opportunity or employment at home – just like the others. They went to countries or regions holding better opportunities – just like the others. They went because they were invited – just like the others.
If Cornwall’s rugby codebreakers cannot be separated culturally from the great migration, they often cannot be separated individually either. Many had emigrated, returned, and then joined the northern union/rugby league, or vice versa.
Some achieved great things as professional rugby players. Some enjoyed solid careers. Some, for various reasons, weren’t quite up to the mark. For a few, misfortune and/or tragedy awaited. But all deserve to be remembered with pride in Cornwall.
This is their story.
These posts are a work in progress. We’ll never definitively know all the names of the players who went north – how many left Cornwall to work in the coalfields, and found themselves playing amateur northern union rugby – but I hope this story will grow with the telling.
William Trembath (1877-1932), Penzance RFC, Newlyn RFC
Trembath captured in his Newlyn days. From: Kenneth Pelmear, Rugby in the Duchy, CRFU, 1960, p24
William Trembath was a vegetable gardener from Newlyn5. As an adult he stood 5ft 3, weighed 12 stone 8 and forswore alcohol. At the age of 13 he emigrated to America and returned when he was 19. Only then did he take up rugby, and must have had some talent. Starting out as a forward with Penzance, he was selected for Cornwall in that position before moving to the threequarters.
With a change of position came a change of club. Trembath made the short trip to Newlyn, helping them to the junior championship of Cornwall in their second season. He was rapidly made their captain.
This move meant his days as a Cornwall player were over. The CRFU were never going to pick a man from the ranks of junior rugby, even one of Trembath’s calibre. Perhaps this made the northern union all the more appealing.
In 18996 he signed to Rochdale Hornets and continued the occupation he had in Cornwall, only now his income was supplemented as a professional footballer. He also moved back to the pack. A dislocated shoulder on debut put him out for several weeks, but he soon made his mark and was appointed the Hornets’ captain too.
Either Trembath was prone to injury, or both versions of the game were remarkably tough in those days. He had another injury to his arm which kept it in a sling, a dislocated ankle, fractured ribs and an indentation on his skull courtesy of a well-aimed boot. Overall, though, his preference was for the northern union:
…it was so fast. It took more out of a man than Rugby football, and it was absolutely essential for any man who would do his duty by his club to train assiduously.
Cornish Telegraph, December 19 1900, p5
In his day William Trembath was the ‘best forward’ Rochdale possessed7, but he returned to Cornwall in 1902. The 1911 census finds him living in Falmouth, and still working as a vegetable gardener. William died in 1932, and was well remembered in Rochdale:
He was a typical Cornishman with the fair complexion and rounded features common to the county and he possessed a winning personality and was a great favourite in whatever company he happened to be.
Rochdale Observer, September 7 1932, p4
(With thanks to Nick Serpell.)
Oliver Triggs (1874-1939), Penzance RFC
19 caps for Cornwall, 1894-1900
Triggs for Cornwall in 1900. From: Kenneth Pelmear, Rugby in the Duchy, CRFU, 1960, p72
Oliver Triggs was born in Cumberland in 1874, the son of a Cornish miner. The family took him back to Marazion to be baptised on the Wesleyan Circuit, and then returned to Cumberland. Aged 26 in 1900, Oliver stood 5ft 10, weighed 13 stone and had served time at Bodmin for assaulting a policeman. He was a forward of some note and a Cornwall regular. He may have also played association football for Cornwall, as a goalkeeper in 18968.
The northern union may have only been in existence for five years, but its talent scouts and agents had already reached west Cornwall. One (very possibly the same man who approached William Trembath) apparently made Triggs an offer he couldn’t refuse in the autumn of 1900, and by November he had left Penzance to join Rochdale Hornets. This was an obvious blow to Cornish rugby, but his friends were unanimous in wishing him
Good luck…
Cornubian and Redruth Times, November 30 1900, p7
Oliver’s time in Rochdale was over before it had begun. By December 1900 he had left, a ‘paper at the time stating he
…had a difference with the committee…
Northern Daily Telegraph, December 29 1900, p3
His obituary, on the other hand, claims an injury put him on the train back to Cornwall. He later served in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, but was invalided out in 1916. He became a hotelier, and then a farmer at Crowlas, being remembered on his death as
…probably the best forward Penzance has ever produced…was liked and esteemed by all who knew him.
Cornish Post and Mining News, November 25 1939, p6
(With thanks to Nick Serpell.)
Jack Bray (c1880-1935), Penzance RFC, Devonport Albion RFC
Eight caps for Cornwall, 1898-99
Jack Bray was a threequarter who began his career at Penzance, but would shortly switch allegiance to Devonport Albion9. The Devon club was powerful and prosperous in the early 1900s, being long – and jealously – suspected of luring rugby talent into their fold with assurances of easy money to be had working in the dockyards:
Any good footballer can secure a berth in the Devonport Dockyard…One of the Swansea forwards was offered…£100 a year…and would consent to play for the Albion club…he need not be too clever at his work so long as he played good football.
Lake’s Falmouth Packet, December 8 1900
Bray’s flirtation with the northern union was nebulous, but he certainly joined Rochdale Hornets in 190010. Injury put paid to his professional career, and he emigrated to Johannesburg. The stigma of professionalism followed him to South Africa, and he was barred from joining any union teams. He died there in 1935. Even then, he was remembered as
…one of the finest rugby men produced by Penzance.
Tommy Brice was an engineer from Falmouth and a talented scrum-half, the ‘nippiest’ in Cornwall, by the estimation of one pundit11. The early 1900s, though, was not the time to have serious designs on that position for Cornwall. The diminutive St Ives player Thomas ‘Chicky’ Wedge was in the ascendant throughout the decade, and went on to win two England caps12.
For example, when Cornwall hosted the South Africans in December 1906, Tommy was a reserve, while Wedge got the honours. His chance came in early 1907. Wedge’s England debut against France clashed with Cornwall’s fixture at Gloucester, and Brice contributed to a fine 13-6 victory. Even then he was damned by faint praise. Tommy
…made a capital understudy for Wedge…
Cornishman, January 10 1907, p3
Tommy filled in for the next fixture against Devon when Wedge was injured, but was always going to be a stopgap. Similar happened against Somerset at Taunton in November 1907; then against Devon at Camborne in December 1908, Tommy was the second-choice replacement for James ‘Maffer’ Davey13. A season later, and with no further honours, Tommy had probably had enough. By autumn 1909, he had signed for Oldham. He was handed a tough baptism against Salford:
Brice did not prove convincing at half-back. He was up against a hot scrummage worker, and the Cornishman did not shine.
Royal Cornwall Gazette, September 16 1909, p7
As in Cornwall, so it was to be in Oldham. Tommy made less than 30 appearances for the senior team between 1909 and 1914, but did become skipper of their ‘A’ side14.
The surname Launce is rather well known in Salford. William Henry Launce was a engineer from Devonport who came to Camborne in 190616. Standing at 5ft 6, he found his way barred to becoming Cornwall’s premier full-back by none other than John Jackett, and would find himself chosen as a reserve, hoping against hope that his chance would materialise17.
Opportunity only came knocking in early 1911, when wing Barrie Bennetts was unavailable for the fixture against Devon. Jackett slotted into the centre, paving the way for Launce to make his debut, but he had little to do as Cornwall went down 6-0 in a Devonport mud bath. By August that year, he had signed terms for Salford18.
Salford had conducted a nationwide search in their quest for a new full-back; in other words, Launce was probably second only to John Jackett in the entire country, not just Cornwall. As such, he probably wasn’t cheap, but Salford were right to back their hunch. Between 1911 and 1920 Harry made over 250 appearances for the club, including 87 during the war. His finest hour came against Huddersfield in the northern union league final in 1914. Harry had to leave the field with a nasty rib injury, but bravely returned and made a last-minute, try-saving tackle to give Salford their first-ever league victory, 5-319.
Courtesy Alan Gordon, We Grew Up in Salford Facebook page
In the early 1930s, Harry founded the amateur rugby league club Langworthy Reds. Over the years this has acted as a feeder team for the parent club in the area, Salford, and Harry himself maintained strong links with his old team. Even in the 1950s, you could find him selling tickets on match days. He died in 1963, but that was not the end of the Launce family’s connections to rugby league in Salford20.
Harry’s son, Harry Jnr became a Langworthy stalwart. On his death in 1992, a memorial trophy was commissioned and matches were played in his memory21. To this day he is remembered with great fondness. Here’s what a local man, Alan Gordon, had to say:
…he was a massive part of its history, encouraging hundreds of youngsters to get off the streets and play rugby…
Many in Salford expressed similar sentiments. That’s quite a legacy.
John Jackett (1878-1935), Falmouth RFC, Leicester RFC
John Jackett is not only a Cornwall rugby great, but one of Cornwall’s greatest sportspeople. Correspondingly his life is well documented23.
Blessed with matinee-idol looks, in his youth he was a model for the artist Henry Scott Tuke. Before finding fame as a rugby player, he was a champion racing cyclist during the sport’s pioneering years. When a Leicester RFC full-back, he led Cornwall to their 1908 County Championship triumph, and was also at the helm when Cornwall represented Great Britain at that year’s Olympic Games24. He won 13 caps for England, and was a playing member of the gloriously shambolic 1908 British Lions tour to New Zealand and Australia.
Yet Jackett was a controversial figure. A scandal with an unmarried Falmouth girl resulted in him spending a year as a Cape Mounted Policeman in the Boer War. He was also long suspected of playing rugby union for financial gain. Falmouth and Leicester may have been his principal clubs, but he also represented Penzance, Devonport Albion and Plymouth, with many accusations of him being ‘induced’ to do so. Indeed, the RFU investigated Leicester’s accounts when Jackett was with them, but decided to find nothing untoward. The RFU President resigned in disgust. He criticised in print the England and British Lions’ woeful lack of preparation and found himself frozen out as a consequence.
In late 1911 he signed for the northern union club Dewsbury, and many saw this as an attempt by Jackett to cash in (legitimately) on his name with an unfashionable side while he still had gas in the tank. In fact, he was instrumental in Dewsbury’s first Challenge Cup success in 1912. His opposite number in the second round against Salford was none other than Harry Launce; Jackett was still judged the latter’s superior.
Contentious to the last, he may have attempted to recruit Cornishmen for the northern union himself, and Cornish ‘papers reported on how he believed the northern game ‘superior’ to its southern variant25.
Only two men have ever captained a XV to the County Championship, played for the British Lions, and won the northern union/rugby league Challenge Cup26.
John Jackett is one of them. But you can search in vain for his involvement with professional rugby in the CRFU’s official history27.
Tom Morrissey (c1888-1953), Camborne RFC
Five caps for Cornwall, 1911-12
Lancashire’s first look at the Hornets’ imposing new signing, Rochdale Times, September 4 1912, p7.
Tom Morrissey, whose parents hailed from Tipperary28, was a miner who stood 6ft and weighed 14 stone. This made him one of the biggest men around, and he needed to be. Many a Saturday night in Camborne was spent brawling with those who sought, unwisely, to mock his Irish roots.
As it was on the streets, so it was on the pitch. His disciplinary record wasn’t the best before that fateful match at Redruth in spring 1912, when constant, racist barracking from the home faithful caused Tom to drop his shorts and bare his arse to Hellfire Corner. What was a bad-tempered fixture degenerated into a mass brawl on the pitch at full-time involving players and fans both.
Nobody was condoning Tom’s actions, but at a Redruth-dominated CRFU meeting, Camborne’s representatives condemned the home crowd’s provocation of their big forward, but to no avail. Tom was suspended for a draconian two years. Nobody seems to have been surprised when he signed for Rochdale Hornets over the summer.
Being feted on his arrival in the town for his size and obviously uncompromising character, Tom struggled to make his mark. His outings were largely confined to the ‘A’ team, until 1914 when a knee injury turned septic and required an emergency operation.
The joint was left permanently stiff, and his playing days were over. He lived on in Rochdale, working as an iron driller. Relatives in Cornwall remember him as a quiet, softly-spoken man.
Sam Carter (c1888-1967), Camborne RFC
Six caps for Cornwall, 1909-11
Sam Carter in 1912. He’s either had a tough shift underground, or a hard match on top. Probably both. Courtesy Andrew Selwood
Sam Carter was not as big a man (5ft 9, 12st 7) as his Camborne team mate, Tom Morrissey, yet he was probably just as unflinching a character29. A miner who was one of an astounding 32 siblings, he had worked in America and British Columbia before returning to Cornwall. On the rugby pitch Sam had begun life as a threequarter before moving to the pack, and was regarded as one of Camborne’s up and coming stars, being tipped for a bright future.
All that changed in April 1912.
In that very same match against Redruth where the crowd provoked Tom Morrissey beyond all reason, Sam had issues of his own. He laid a Redruth player out cold on the field (in fact, this player was in the act of assaulting Morrissey when Sam intervened), and then threatened the referee with similar treatment if he ordered him off the pitch.
Suspended for three months in the aftermath, he took the same option as his team mate and joined Rochdale Hornets. Where Tom struggled, Sam had a successful career, and was reckoned within an ace of international recognition in the 1913-14 season. He built up a fearful reputation as a loose forward with formidable all-round skills, but was unfortunate that the Hornets’ Challenge Cup triumph in 1922 came too late in his career for him to play a full part.
Sam’s story is one of self-improvement.
Sam at the entrance to The Golden Fleece, Rochdale. Flanking him are old team-mates Joe (left) and Louis Corsi. Advertisements for the Fleece were regularly included in match programmes, exhorting thirsty fans to ‘Come and see your old pal Sammy Carter’. Courtesy Rochdale Hornets Heritage Archive
No longer a scrappy, tough-as-hide miner, Sam became a publican and in 1932 stood, unsuccessfully, as the Conservative candidate for Rochdale’s Castleton East district. As he himself said,
…Rochdale had been good to him, and it was his desire to do something for the town of his adoption.
Rochdale Observer, October 26 1932, p4
Sam and his wife moved back to Camborne, where he died in 1967. His house at Treswithian was named Buersil, after an area of Rochdale. He never went to watch his old union club play.
Arthur John Thomas was the last surviving member of the 1908 County Championship winning XV. Though born in Penryn, he never actually played for the town, representing Devonport Albion for his entire senior career. His obituary noted he was a
…a robust forward with great speed and a tremendous tackler…
West Briton, April 13 1972, p20
His life was an eventful one. He had emigrated to America, was a strong swimmer and runner, and had served in the Royal Navy. During World War One he was in command of a machine gun corps on the Somme, where he was wounded.
Injury sustained during an international trial spoilt his England chances, and he signed for Dewsbury in 1913, eventually making 50 appearances for the club. One may suspect the hand of John Jackett here; the men played for Cornwall together, and Jackett of course represented Dewsbury himself. Jack later returned to Cornwall, managing a theatre in Falmouth31.
Harold Thomas (1894-1954), Penryn RFC
Uncapped
Harold Thomas’ treatment by the CRFU and RFU was a disgrace, but it must be observed that rugby football was not his primary sport.
A baker by trade, Harold’s main game was boxing. He was Cornwall’s one-time middleweight champion, and when with the Army of Occupation in France during World War One, fought his way to the top there too32.
He was clearly not a man to be troubling with; in 1922 he was fined for assaulting a man at a dance in Truro. The police had to drag him off his victim. On hanging up his gloves he became well known in the fight game as a promoter, organising bouts throughout the 1930s, 40s and 50s33.
Finding himself out of work on discharge from the Navy in 1914, he travelled north to Dewsbury, taking up amateur northern union rugby. A centre of some note, he came to the attention of Dewsbury club itself, and signed for them professionally in 1914, yet only played a handful of matches before joining the Royal Flying Corps34.
He transferred to the military and saw action in France, Belgium and Germany. Demobbed in 1920, he returned to Penryn, taking up rugby union football, yet keeping his professional rugby past a secret35.
Somehow the CRFU’s suspicions were aroused, and they contacted Dewsbury, who denied that Harold had ever played for them. It was John Jackett, however, who blew his cover, stating that he and Harold had played games for Dewsbury together36. Quite what Jackett’s motivations were is unclear, but the CRFU had no choice but to suspend Harold.
(The CRFU, curiously, never had any objections to Harold Thomas’s career as a professional boxer37.)
Penryn RFC sent a petition to the RFU, and Harold appealed too. He had been under the impression that amateur and professional rugby distinctions had been relaxed during the war (which was certainly true), hence he felt he had no real obligation to mention his playing for Dewsbury.
The CRFU passed the whole affair on to the RFU for adjudication, which it duly did. In March 1923 it was announced that Harold’s amateur status would not be reinstated38.
You can examine the careers of the later Cornish codebreakers in part two, by clicking HERE.
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A Social History of English Rugby Union, Routledge, 2009, p120.
The ‘pull’ factors of emigration in the earlier 1800s (Cornish mining expertise being sought after in new ventures overseas) contributed to the ‘push’ factors which became more evident later in the century. As the foreign mining industry, assisted by Cornish know-how expanded and prospered, so this led to an economic depression in Cornwall itself and accelerated the cult of migration. Furthermore, a global market factor – the copper crash of the 1870s – spelt the beginning of the end for Cornwall’s primary industry. Leaving Cornwall to find work became a way of life that would only begin to abate with the outbreak of World War One. The figures are staggering. Between 1840 and 1900, 240,000 Cornish went overseas. An additional 230,000 left to find work in England and Wales. Between 1861 and 1900, over 44 per cent of Cornwall’s male population aged between 15 and 24 left its shores. A further 29 per cent of this age bracket went north of the Tamar. From: Philip Payton, The Cornish Overseas: The Epic Story of the ‘Great Migration’, Cornwall Editions, 2005, p28.
All players’ appearances for Cornwall are, by and large, from: The First Hundred Years: The Story of Rugby Football in Cornwall, by Tom Salmon, CRFU, 1983. Salmon’s records state that Tommy Brice debuted in 1906 (it was 1907, and he played thrice not once), and Harry Launce in 1910 (it was 1911).
An interview Trembath gave for a northern ‘paper was reprinted in the Cornish Telegraph on December 19, 1900, p5. England and Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index 1837-1915, vol. 5c, p281.
Rochdale Observer, November 4 1899, p5.
Cornish Telegraph, November 28 1900, p8.
England and Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index 1837-1915, vol. 10b, p267, 1881 census and https://www.cornwall-opc-database.org/search-database/more-info/?t=baptisms&id=7276540. His assault is noted in the Cornishman, March 18 1897. Triggs’ vital stats are recorded in the Manchester Courier, November 26 1900, p9. A Cornish association side met Penzance in March 1896: Cornishman, March 26 1896, p6.
As noted in the Cornishman, December 22 1898, p6.
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, September 3 1900, p6.
1911 census; Lake’s Falmouth Packet, September 14 1906, p8.
Image from: Graham Morris, Salford Rugby League Club: 100 Greats, NPI Media, 2001, p78.
1911 census; West Briton, January 10 1907.
Graham Morris, Salford Rugby League Club: 100 Greats, NPI Media, 2001, p78; the Commercial, Shipping and General Advertiser of November 18 1910 lists him as a reserve to Jackett.
Cornishman, January 19 1911; West Briton, August 17 1911.
Graham Morris, Salford Rugby League Club: 100 Greats, NPI Media, 2001, p78.
…there is something worth knowing in the Cornish mode of wrestling… ~ R. M. Ballantyne, Deep Down, A Tale of the Cornish Mines, 1880, p157
…many dispute when exactly was the Golden Age of Cornish wrestling…but whenever it was, it isn’t now… ~ BBC’s Tonight programme, 19651
…you take the glory or you take the stick – there’s only one winner! ~ Gerry Cawley
Wrasslin’?
I remember my gran getting all keyed up to go and watch the wrestling at Carn Brea Leisure Centre in the early 1980s. My dad, who was playing the role of chaperone, told me she positioned herself near the ring with her cronies (each resembling Mrs Wilberforce in The Ladykillers), and all of them proceeded to wave their walking sticks and shout encouragement and oaths with equal vehemence at the gladiators before them. Father said he’d never heard gran use language like that before or since. Clearly, she’d had a grand old time.
I’d like to report it was Cornish wrestling, or wrasslin’, that was getting these dear old ladies so hot under the collar, but no. The immensely popular ITV professional wrestling programme of the 1980s had gone on the road with two of its biggest draws:
Packet, April 6 1984. Courtesy Keith Leonard Moore, Fecebook
This is the point: I strongly suspect that my gran, who was born in 1910, never watched a Cornish wrestling bout. For even in Cornwall itself, it’s fair to say Cornish wrestling is a minority sport. It might even be an endangered species2.
Like hurling, Cornish wrestling only exists now in a few rural enclaves. There’s only two clubs, at St Columb and Sithney, though St Mawgan organises an annual tournament. In 2018 there were only 39 registered wrestlers: seniors, juniors, men and women. Its practitioners are, on the whole, reduced to giving demonstrations at local fetes and fairs which regularly feature other traditional countryside pastimes and ways of life under threat of disappearing altogether. At Camborne’s 2025 Trevithick Day celebrations, wrestlers featured alongside morris dancers and a parade of bal maidens3.
It wasn’t always like this. Cornish wrestling has a long, long history, its origins going back millenia. Its heyday was in the first half of the 19th century, when every town and village would have its tournament and its champion, and could draw crowds of several thousands for the big contests. Great were the prizes and reputations at stake.
Even in the 1920s, Cornish wrestling would draw the fans and be deemed newsworthy. This is a still from a Pathe newsreel of the County Championships at Newquay in 19254
The great Cornwall-Devon grudge match of 1826, between St Columb’s James Polkinghorne and Abraham Cann at Tamar Green near Devonport drew a crowd of around 18,000. Gentry had box seats in temporary galleries and stands; the riff-raff roughed it on surrounding hillsides. Bands pumped out the tunes and local victuallers made a killing. The winner could expect a £200 jackpot – in 2025, that’s nearly £17K.
For all the hype, in newsprint and elsewhere, the battle ended after three hours in an acrimonious draw, with both sides claiming victory. Beneath all the wrangling over who won lies the fundamental reason why Cornish wrestling remained forever Cornish, and retracted in popularity over time rather than expanding or consolidating.
For not only are the rules and methods governing the Cornish form of wrestling markedly different from its nearest geographical neighbour, but Cornish wrestling (for that is what concerns us here) also differs from other forms of wrestling in the British Isles, for example the Cumberland-Westmorland style. Its use of a canvas jacket also differentiates it from the two styles recognised at the Olympics, Greco-Roman and freestyle. The only form of wrestling compatible with the Cornish style is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the gouren variety found in Brittany. Of course, Cornish wrestling is also nothing like its professional counterpart.
This fundamentally localised aspect of the sport, combined with the advent of modern pastimes and several other factors, has meant that Cornish wrestling now finds itself embattled and beleaguered.
My cousin Andrew Jewell displaying the trophies he won at three different weights as a Cornish wrestler. Andrew wrestled at the club in Troon, which opened in 1987 but is now long vanished5. Courtesy Pat Herbert
All this isn’t to say, however, that Cornish wrestling is no longer relevant, or worth bothering with. Cornish wrestling ought to be considered on its own terms. If we take it at face value, we discover that, much like any other sport, Cornish wrestling has its infrastructure, its fans, its advocates, its historians, its purists and its innovators. It has its code, its culture, its traditions, its terminology and its notion of fair play. (Indeed, the oath every wrestler has to swear contains the words gwary whek yu gwary tek – good play is fair play.) It has its anecdotes, its stories, its rivalries, its controversies, its winners and losers, champions and gallant also-rans. It has its villains.
And it has its heroes.
Champion wrassler
Gerry, Cornish Light-Heavyweight Champion, at Perranporth, with the Walter Hicks Trophy. From his Wikipedia entry
Cornish wrestling’s biggest hero is Gerry Cawley. A member of the construction industry from St Mawgan, Gerry (born in 1961) is Cornish wrestling’s equivalent of cycling’s Eddy Merckx6. Like the man from Belgium they called Le Cannibale, Gerry Cawley has won everything worth winning in his chosen sport. Since the 1980s, the name Cawley has become synonymous with Cornish wrestling.
St Mawgan’s always had its annual wrestling, like most every village used to have, but they’ve all disappeared one by one.
We were four boys, I was the youngest, and this year like all the others we went down to watch the wrestling in the village. And the older ones, they all put their name down to give it a go and enter the novice competition. But I was only 11 or 12 and I didn’t, but mischievous as brothers are, I knew nothing ‘bout it ‘till my name was announced over the microphone, they’d entered me while we were at the table!
What you’d call a hellfire baptism! I ‘ad five minutes’ behind the tent, bit of tuition by one of the other boys in the village that’d done a bit before and he showed me a move or two…unfortunately, when the names were pulled out the hat, I was in with him!
I managed to come third in my first ever competition, and I think that was just basically through a natural flair, a natural ability based around speed. The rest of the brothers followed it throughout the rest of the summer season, that was it, we were basically all smitten, and carried on from there!
If a youngster shows enthusiasm or aptitude for a sport, nowadays they are pointed in the direction of the nearest club. For a keen wrestler in 1970s St Mawgan, that was impossible:
There was none! I got tuition locally in the village by an old gentleman, he’d wrestled in the 20s and the 30s, and he showed me the old ways. As a youth I’d done very well very fast, and what that leads to is all the old wrestlers, the sticklers [referees], when you’re good, they take to you and they offload a few of their special moves and tips to you.
They’re always right there with advice, ‘cause they’ve enjoyed watching you win, and if you did do a little bit of something wrong, they’ll point it out to you and give you help. There was no clubs.
The time-honoured oral traditions of Cornish wrestling carried the sport for centuries, but Gerry is more than aware of the limitations of this approach in the modern age:
Cornish wrestling goes back through the mists of time, basically the martial art of the Ancient Britons. In Cornwall, for all those millennia, there wasn’t a lot of sports. You had hurling, wrestling was the more popular, but it’s handed down there, father to son, brother to brother, in the workplace, in the schoolyard…
…it was the birthright of a young Cornishman. The boys couldn’t wait to join the ranks and learn to wrestle and give it a go. Wrestlers were that numerous, you only had to look at tournaments in the 18th and 19th centuries, you’ve got hundreds of wrestlers turning up, and thousands of spectators! In that environment, there was no need [for clubs] , there was never an infrastructure in Cornish wrestling. The first association wasn’t formed until 19237, but people trained in the different areas and you would have your large families who would train amongst themselves, and that’s the way it carried on.
When it comes to the First World War, I think that was the first big downfall [for Cornish wrestling]. In the 1920s that was really the last big time. You lost so many fathers and grandfathers, people who could teach and hand it on. And of course so many Cornishmen for a long time were leaving Cornwall, working and wrestling right around the globe, but not many of them came back. So you’re losing all that potential for training youngsters between the wars.
War, collapse of industry, emigration…it’s no coincidence that the Cornish Wrestling Association (CWA) was founded at around the same time as the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, whose mission statement was
…the preservation of everything bearing on the history and antiquities of Cornwall…
Cornish Post and Mining News, January 10 1925, p7
…at just the time when Cornwall was changing forever. You have to say the Federation has succeeded admirably. But the CWA was riven with internal strife over just what ‘traditional’ Cornish wrestling was, with several splinter organisations forming. All this served to hamper the sport’s development.
Women’s competitions were only permitted in 1994, and the CWA finally affiliated with the British Wrestling Association in 2004. A definitive Cornish wrestling rule book became available in 20118.
As Gerry readily admits, for
…the two clubs, it’s too little, too late. You could have done with that a long time ago…We suffered…
By the time we come to the 1960s, there was really a problem, but that was helped out by Truro Cathedral School, had it introduced to the curriculum. Half of all the [Cornish] wrestlers came from the school! They kept it alive, basically.
Even at 14, Gerry was being tipped for a bright future. From his Wikpedia page
Fortunately for Gerry, when he took up the sport in the 1970s it was enjoying something of a revival. Cornish wrestling might not be an Olympic nor, despite lobbying in 2019, a Commonwealth sport, but its exponents can take their game on the road and compete against their Breton counterparts. Wrestlers from Brittany first visited Cornwall in 1929 and, despite occasional lulls (especially during World War Two), exchange trips have been taking place ever since. Nowadays the event has evolved into an inter-Celtic wrestling tournament associated with the annual AberFest celebrations10.
Francis St Clair Gregory enjoyed inter-Celtic success in the 1930s. A rugby player for Redruth and Cornwall, he later signed for Rugby League outfit Wigan and represented England. In 1955 he featured in the first-ever televised wrestling bout in the UK11
Starting in the U16s at age 14, Gerry won the Cornish title three years running12. He was already known for his speed, and taking on bigger, older lads never worried him. After all, he was the youngest of four wrestling brothers:
It is possible for the smaller man to throw the larger man. All things being equal, you need the skill and you need the speed. But there’s certain throws, once you get into a position, they can’t get out of it.
It has been known in open competition for the lightweight champion to throw the heavyweight champion! Once you’ve blocked the outside ankle with your heel, you’ve stepped across them to stabilise yourself, they [your opponent] needs to step sideways, and they can’t. You’ve locked your leg against them.
Moving up to the U18s, in the Final he came up against the reigning champion:
I took him out clean on the back, and once those sticks go in the air from the sticklers, it’s all over! No good arguing the toss with the stickler, they don’t wear that! Like one said one day, ‘If you wanna find out who won, boy, look in next week’s Cornish Guardian!’
He’d already been to Brittany aged 16. Traditionally, Cornish wrestlers don’t do well against Breton opponents. When Gerry started, the only Cornishman to make his mark was Francis Gregory, and they’d only won as a team in 1947. It’s easy to see why:
The Breton style or gouren traditionally takes place on sawdust13
They’ve had academies for a long time. Same as they have in Cumberland and Westmorland. If you’ve been to Brittany yourself you’ll see how good they are on their heritage, their culture and the preservation of it all…and they’ve always had clubs, which is another thing. Each reasonable sized village has its own club. They start them young and they nurture them, which again was in advance of us doing it. The sheer number of wrestlers in Brittany and the interest always makes the standard higher, really.
Allied to this, Gerry is of the opinion that Breton wrestling is a more ‘pure’ version of Cornish wrestling, due to the cross-channel migration of the Cornish to Brittany in sub-Roman Britain14. Be that as it may, he took the U16s and U18s inter-Celtic titles on his first trip:
That’s the only time someone has held both titles at the same time since 1936…I’d done everything by the time I was still a teenager. When I was 19 I went over there [to Brittany] and won the middleweight, so I’d had 12 titles in championships by the time I was 19!
Gerry has been to Brittany five times, and every time returned home victorious. One year, he told me, the Cornish team lost 10-1. He was the only man to win his bout. Lurking in the background, though, would be the issues of lack of funding and recognition. In 1979, the CWA requested financial aid from Carrick Council to enable them to host that year’s inter-Celtic tournament at St Stephen-in-Brannel:
…who had decided not to offer any financial help because they had already exhausted their allocation of grant money.
West Briton, September 6 1979, p5
Nevertheless, the cash was scraped together and the 50th anniversary of a Breton wrestling team coming to Cornwall went ahead. For the first time since 1947, the Cornish team won, a victory made all the sweeter by the fact that St Stephen has hosted wrestling tournaments since 129115. Naturally, Gerry won his middleweight bout. But he was thinking bigger.
Just because Cornish wrestling is an amateur, self-funded minority sport, doesn’t mean that its practitioners lack dedication or ambition. Indeed, you might argue they’re all the more committed for these very reasons.
There’s few more committed than Gerry Cawley. At 5′ 7″, he was always a natural middleweight at 11st 11lbs. It wasn’t enough:
I could’ve done that for ever and a day, but my ambition was to try and win everything, the light-heavyweight and the heavyweight. That’s why I started training, and eating, and trying to build up, to compete on a better footing with larger contestants.
He found bodybuilding and, later, boxing:
I never went near a boxing club until later in life when my eldest was ten, I took him to learn to box. Rather than just drop him off, I used to stay there and do it, more a recreational boxer!
I was looking for something else…just to see what you can do. You challenge yourself, because it’s not a team sport. It’s man-on-man, and it’s all down to you. So you take the glory or you take the stick – there’s only one winner! You wanna be the best, but you’re testing yourself.
With a full-time, physical job and a young family, Gerry trained whenever he found the time, or the mood took him:
I didn’t do a lot of training! You’d be wrestling all through the summer every other weekend, then you’d do demonstrations, so you were always basically doing it. Practising was just down the park, on the grass with your mates and you would try things and have a good time.
As far as bulking up, I would work hard with the weights, but again with no real club. You weren’t tied to set training, I ran when I wanted and swam when I wanted. I didn’t have anything hard and fast, but then I was spoilt really because I do think I was natural for the sport. I could always beat me brothers, and they were all older than me. I’ve been described as a coiled spring!
Just when they [my opponent] went to do something, I’ve countered on it, and it’s all over. It’s all speed. As I got older, I only added experience to it and got stronger and heavier. But I was never going to make a national heavyweight…You’ve got to rely a lot of the time on those natural abilities.
Gerry said he also wanted more ‘timber’ on him, as he put it, to counter being knocked about as a youngster in the ring with older men. When he began there was no real youth categories in the sport, he told me, so if you wanted to practice outside of tournaments, you took what you got.
By 1983, he was Cornish heavyweight champion. But a bigger challenge awaited him.
A Cornish wrestler on TV
Torbay Express, May 18 1985, p11
In 1985, Gerry became a star of the small screen when he appeared on the ITV documentary Once in a Lifetime. Being Cornwall‘s wrestling champion was all well and good, but could he unite the Cornish and Breton belts as inter-Celtic champion? Any heavyweight unification bout is newsworthy, and Yorkshire Television’s Barry Cockroft, who resided in Cornwall, got wind of the match-up17.
Gerry was to meet Jean-Yves Péran, gouren‘s alpha male, in Brittany. Today, Gerry is phlegmatic:
I’d started building up then, just out of my teens, they came to you, and you weren’t going to turn them down! Personally I wasn’t ready for it, I didn’t win, but I got a shilling out of it, wonderful experience.
Jean-Yves Péran, he’s a typical Breton wrestler in that he’s been there since he was a toddler, trained in the academies…he’s a very good technician, taller than me, but he was so much more advanced in his technique and training.
I wasn’t mature at the time. I would have liked to have done it a few years later. But it was a wonderful experience!
Mature or not, Gerry wasn’t going to turn down the chance to promote his sport nationally, nor the significant payday on offer:
I took the time off work, we didn’t do much filming, we shot the opening sequences down St Mawgan because the trees and the church make a beautiful amphitheatre. But then we all had to pack up and go over to Brittany. It all took a week. But they were paying for it – that’s where I got me £400 from! The family went, my mum had a thoroughly good time.
It was a fairly small outfit, one main cameraman, producer, director, assistant and sound man. It wasn’t a big affair.
An afternoon in the sun at St Mawgan’s 2019 tournament18
The £400 Gerry received was his biggest career earnings. From around 40 years in the sport, he reckons to have made £1,000 from wrestling. But of course, like all amateur sportspeople, you do it because you love it.
It wasn’t always so. Even in the 1960s, Gerry said, you could wrestle all summer and earn decent money:
When I started in the 70s, you used to win a few bob, in the novices there might be £5 for first prize. One of the measurements for not being a novice anymore was when you’d won £7! So then you had to compete in the open tournaments.
In the 1980s the money had run out, apart from the heavyweight [championship], one day a year for the belt, that would be a £10 prize. The wrestling community was getting smaller and they were all doing it for the sake of the sport. But when it comes to the championships, we’ve got five belts, and a big silver two gallon cup for the light-heavyweights (which holds 16 pints!), which was given by Walter Hicks of St Austell Brewery.
The Walter Hicks Trophy was presented to the CWA in 192619
You would enter them for nothing: to become champion of Cornwall, for a Cornishman, that’s what it’s about. Pride for the belt. Down at St Mawgan we still give some good prize money; if you won the open tournament you’d probably win £50, but we’re the only remaining committee left! There’d be 30 or more in the 1920s, under the auspices of the [Cornish Wrestling] Association, but it’s not like that now.
The CWA has to organise and run most of its tournaments itself. Unfortunately they’re so often tacked on as a bit of a sideshow to a rally, a fete or a fair. Ours at St Mawgan stands alone nowadays, apart from Castle-an-Dinas the last couple of years. Nothing else stands alone as wrestling for wrestling’s sake.
But for me it’s always been the pride of it, anyway.
Gerry’s stellar wrestling career continued. He was Cornish heavyweight champion again in 1984, 1991, 2002 and 2007. Besides the bouts and the tournaments, he has given countless demonstrations all over Cornwall. He still prepares the ground for the annual St Mawgan tournament to this day:
They [events organisers] always come looking for you. There’s a lot of regular regattas and fairs and fetes and things in Cornwall. I think it’s some years ago now they all learnt, really, that if you want us, you’ve got to get in contact with the secretary the year before. There’s always the tournaments, which aren’t so numerous as they used to be, then the fixture list will be compiled for the year around who wants a demonstration.
But you’ve got your standards in your big towns, your standard tournament is more or less the same time because you’ve got to allocate your championships for the year, and you want a good venue with the best possible attendance.
Naturally, Gerry and his fellow wrestlers are cultivated by various pro-Cornish groups21:
Because it’s always been there, it’s integral. If they have a country fair people would want you for a demonstration, because you’re Cornish, because you’re traditional. It’s nice to work in harmony with other Cornish people. We get assistance from the Cornwall Heritage Trust, so we all help each other.
Another external challenge hit Cornish wrestling in the late 1970s and early 1980s: judo.
The last round?
Masutaro Otani (1896-1977) was a judo master who brought his sport to Britain in 1919, and became President of the British Judo Council in the 1950s22
Otani was the first judo wrestler that came over to this country and toured in the music halls, taking on all-comers. The challenge was for them to stay 15 minutes with him.
They came down to Plymouth, and the secretary of the Cornish Wrestling Association took some wrestlers up. Francis Gregory threw him several good turns, but he was only 16! And our heavyweight champion, Fred Richards, he became the first man to hold and contain Otani and won the forfeit that they had never had to pay out before.
From these music-hall, exhibition origins, judo has grown. A quick online search shows nine clubs in Cornwall alone, and additionally 20 karate or martial arts clubs.
…but the youth of today, the vast choice is for martial arts now, they’re all usually indoors on soft mats and other good aspects to it. To get youngsters to go out and smite each other on the floor and on the grass, it’s not easy nowadays. To them, it’s looking backwards to old traditional stuff, but there’s so much new stuff, everyone wants something more exciting and more attractive in other ways.
I mean, look at the success of judo around the world, with the structure, the way its built and what they offer. It [judo] was there, it was in schools, you had a job to get Cornish wrestling in schools, but everybody took to judo because it got established internationally, governing bodies, everything was done right.
Hollywood played its part here too. Who didn’t fancy a crack at martial arts in the 1980s after watching The Karate Kid? I know I did. Controversy arose, though, when judo exponents took up Cornish wrestling themselves, many of whom met with easy success. There was a certain sense among the Cornish wrestling establishment that, though they respected the judokas‘ skill, they were bringing too much of their own sport into the ring:
…sometimes they don’t stray very far away from the judo. When you get two of them in the ring, you can see them reverting back! Yeah…I would prefer to see good Cornishmen, as long as they were traditional Cornishmen, I would like them to learn and take on all the ins and outs of the sport.
Because what’s important is to pass it [wrestling] on. You might gain a competitor, but you haven’t gained a man for the sport if he isn’t passing on the correct, pure way. You want this sport to continue in the manner it’s always been played.
I’ve nothing against judo players, and they’ve produced some very good champions, Keith Sandercock in particular, lightweight. Fantastic. We’ve had many a good tussle!
Gerry getting in shape for his grudge match, 200023
Critical mass was reached in 2000. Glyn Jones, a formidable black belt judoka originally from Devon, had won the heavyweight title in the previous two years. Obviously some felt it was time the title was returned to a Cornishman, and a pure wrestler at that. Gerry was 38 and had been wrestling for over 20 years, but he had retired. Gamely, he agreed to step back into the ring one last time and restore Cornish honour.
If all this sounds like a hackneyed movie script, that’s exactly how it was marketed. The BBC series Close Up made a documentary of the match’s build-up entitled The Last Round?, the preview of which states
…what is at stake is more than just personal pride – some say it is a fight for the very heart and soul of the sport itself…In the programme Gerry hits the comeback trail determined to win back his crown for the traditionalists24.
Gerry, in between pounding the heavy bag, says in the film that
I would like to take the belt, there’s no two ways about that, just for the sake of the sport, and to make sure there was a Cornish wrassler as the champion25.
Gerry might have been on his own in the ring, but all Cornish wrestling was behind him26
Gerry lost. Jones took the title again in 2001, and then turned his back on the sport. Nowadays Gerry is sanguine about the whole affair:
I’d retired and was long past me best. But likesay they [the CWA] had nobody to match him. My youngest wasn’t old enough, he was coming up through the ranks…but, again, they come to me and if you wanna shine a camera, I’ll dust off me shorts!
Don’t get me wrong, judo is a good sport and your form of wrestling isn’t the only one in the world. There’s about 83 different styles of wrestling around the world. Any country has usually got their own blend. We’re all in the same game. And we don’t mind interaction, we have a lot of people giving it a go now, because the Mixed Martial Arts are popular now, and these people, right away you know they’re open to trying different sports. And they’re usually adept at picking it up and being able to stay within the rules.
As regards Glyn Jones, Gerry told me he bore no personal animosity toward him; indeed, he barely knew him:
I don’t know if he took it to heart because he never wrestled no more after that.
Jones certainly did take his casting as the villain to heart, putting his thoughts in print via The West Briton:
In my opinion all the people…who run wrestling have their heads stuck in the last century and refuse to move with the times. If you are not Cornish or in a real Cornish job [he worked for McDonald’s] then you are a real pariah. They do not actively teach the sport and do nothing to publicise it…
Qtd in Mike Tripp, Cornish Wrestling: A History, Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, 2023, p134
That was over 20 years ago, and Cornish wrestling has moved with the times. Besides the modernisations stated earlier, YouTube is awash with Cornish wrestling footage, including a very informative history of the sport narrated by Gerry himself27. Facebook groups advertise forthcoming events, and Gerry is keen to stress the healthy nature of the sport. In all his long career, he only ever received a few ‘duck eggs’.
It’s also economical. To wrestle at a tournament on the day is a couple of pounds, jacket provided. The clubs start at U10s, membership costing around £5 after a couple of taster sessions. To register as a senior with the CWA is £10 for the season. Anyone who shows a bit of ‘game’, Gerry told me, is more than welcome.
Gerry wrestled on after coming out of retirement, winning the heavyweight title again in 2007 at the age of 44. Gerry is the most successful Cornish wrestler – at all weights – in the last quarter of the 20th century. His children are no slouches either. Ashley was nine times heavyweight champion, and his youngest son Joe won all youth categories until a dislocated collarbone meant that ‘mother called time’.
Nowadays Gerry is a stickler, and organises the St Mawgan tournament with his brother and nephew, and admits there’s something in wrestling that just gets into your blood:
Your opponent, you might not know him, but if you go in there for a ten-minute round with somebody, you come out and you’re kindred spirits. I’ve seen it myself; I’ve run the St Mawgan tournament to this day, and I’ve seen novices go in that’ve never done it before, and after that struggle between two men…and after they come out, they’ve got their arms round each other, laughing and talking about it, it just moves people.
For all Cornish wrestling’s obvious positives, does it have a future? Gerry is very optimistic, but is more than aware of the realities his sport faces:
The world is changing. I mean, the tug-of-war teams were prolific in Cornwall then, there was sheaf-pitching all over the place, there isn’t even the fetes, fairs and carnivals in the numbers there were. But all the old things aren’t the same as they are, and Cornish wrestling is no different.
And when you look and say, yeah, it’s just another martial art, but look at the number of all the other martial arts that we don’t even remember now29.
You’ve got to have a Cornish heart to want to support the sport and come into it.
This June (2025) there will be a demonstration of Cornish wrestling at the Royal Cornwall Show. If you’re going, be sure and lend support to a sport that stretches back millenia and steadfastly remains a part of Cornish culture. Gerry’s continuing wholehearted contribution to Cornish wrestling’s existence is surely his greatest achievement.
My previous Cornish sporting hero was Tony Penberthy, the Troon, Cornwall and Northants cricketer. Find out all about him here.
All content on my website is absolutely FREE. However managing and researching my blog is costly! Please donate a small sum to help me produce more fascinating tales from Cornwall’s past!
The historical and factual information in this post is heavily indebted to Mike Tripp’s authoritative Cornish Wrestling: A History, Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, 2023.
AberFest is an annual Easter festival celebrating all things Cornish and Breton, alternating its location between Brittany and Cornwall. Other events are held throughout the year. See: https://www.facebook.com/AberFest/?locale=en_GB
For example, a demonstration at Gorran in 1980 was organised by the Cornish Nationalist Party; St Keverne’s An Gof Day in 1981 held similar. From: West Briton, May 7 1980, p15; July 2 1981, p17.
On July 16, I present a paper to the Institute of Cornish Studies entitled ‘The Last Days of Holmans’. I intend it to tell the story of the 500 redundancies the firm made in 1985, the demolition of the Number One Works in 1989 (and subsequent erecting of a large supermarket), up to the firm’s final closure in 20032. This paper will later become an article.
What interests me is the reaction of Holmans’ employees and Camborne residents at the time, what locals think about the events now, and the effects they’ve had on the town.
Therefore, if you have connections to either Holmans or Camborne, could you please take a few minutes to complete the brief, confidential survey below. Your contribution matters!
All content on my website is absolutely FREE. However managing and researching my blog is costly! Please donate a small sum to help me produce more fascinating tales from Cornwall’s past!
See: Clive Carter and Peter Joseph, From Holman Brothers to CompAir: The Story of Camborne’s Engineering History, second edition, Trevithick Society, 2012.
He’ll play at Lord’s one day… ~ an unidentified sage appraises a young Penberthy at the home of cricket in 1972
…it’s not all glamour, and it’s not all good… ~ Tony Penberthy gets real
Cornwall’s First Class cricketers
Since the 1970s, there haven’t been many Cornish cricketers who have broken through to play professionally with a First Class County XI. If memory serves, for the men there’s been Mike ‘Pasty’ Harris, Malcolm Dunstan, Michael Bryant, Jack Richards, Malcolm Pooley, Piran Holloway, Ryan Driver, Tim and Neil Edwards, David Roberts, Carl Gazzard and Charlie Shreck. For the women, it’s Laura Harper, Emily Geach and Rebecca Odgers. Apologies if I’ve left anybody out.
When I was watching cricket on TV in the 1990s (this was when domestic cricket was shown on terrestrial television, long before anyone had thought of The Hundred), a Cornishman regularly featured for Northamptonshire. And he was good. He bowled at a decent pace, he was a sharp fielder and he went for his shots. A Cornishman was holding his own against some of the biggest names in world cricket. The commentators invariably made a hash of pronouncing his surname, with no emphasis on the second syllable.
The cricketer in question was Tony Penberthy, from Troon. Penberthy. A man who excels at pretty much any game you care to mention, it was cricket that was always going to win out. As a three-year-old in 1972 he was present at Lord’s when Troon won the inaugural Haig Village Knockout Cup.
Already mad keen on the sport, Tony would wear his own whites and patrol the boundary, hoping the ball would come his way. After the match, whilst playing with some other lads by the Tavern, Tony’s mum, Wendy, was told by an onlooker that
He’ll play at Lord’s one day…for me, luckily, it came true.
The Troon team that beat Astwood Bank at Lord’s in the Haig National Village Cup Final, 19721. Back, l to r: Keith Lean, Peter Thomas, Peter Johns, John Spry, Gerald Dunstan, Brian Carter, Jimmy Vincent, Trevor Angove (scorer). Front, l to r: Tommy Edwards, Brian Moyle, Terry Carter (capt.) David Rashleigh, Mike Sweeney.
Troon won the Village Cup again in 1973, 1976, and were runners-up in 1983, although here Tony and his father Gerald are holding aloft the Western Morning News Trophy won by Troon 2nd XI
That said, initially another sport took precedence:
I would honestly say that football was my first love. I think I was probably still at primary school when Plymouth [Argyle] showed an interest. There was a scout who was at Trewirgie School, but obviously in those days there was no football academies or stuff like that, and I was far too young to go for a trial. So as far as signing me goes, that was never anywhere near!
Argyle got round to inviting Tony for a trial when he was 14, but he was already spending Easter and summer holidays with the Northants cricket squad:
I realised when I came to Northampton and spent two weeks playing and training with the first team, that was the life for me.
Committing to one sport professionally didn’t mean abandoning the other. Even Ian Botham still found time to turn out for Scunthorpe United, and like Beefy, Tony found time to play for Troon AFC. His parents were heavily involved with the club; spending winter playing soccer and seeing his old mates was the ideal salve after a hard summer’s cricket.
It was also good for me to have a break from the cricket. I was also only on a six-month contract, so there was nothing the club [Northants] could do about it! Loved those times. It was always good to come home and play a bit of sport.
Troon AFC, Western Division and Junior Cup winners. Back, l to r: Gerald and Wendy Penberthy, Andy Ward, Phil Wilkes, Phil Meyers, Greg Wood, Kevin Thomas, Micky Maggott, Brian Smeeth, Tony, George Carter, Nigel Parkyn, Paul Cook, Dick Howlett. Front, l to r: Graham Jewell, Steve Webber, Viv Kneebone, Willie Garwood, David Jenkin, Colin Thomas, Wayne Brown.
Cornwall Schools, England Schools
Tony was also fortunate that his secondary school encouraged and nurtured sporting prowess:
I think we were very lucky at Camborne School at the time. We had three male PE teachers, there was Pip [Tuckey], Roger Randall and Andy Dawe. They were great! If you loved your sport, they would encourage you and work with you all the way. I felt very lucky.
Pip Tuckey with yet another successful Camborne School team in the early 1980s. His colleagues, Roger Randall and Andy Dawe both played rugby for Cornwall. Back, l to r: Steven Miners, Simon ‘Rudi’s Message’ Isaacs, Mark Harris, Daniel Wells, Robert James, Jamie Tellam. Front, l to r: Mark ‘Gibbo’ Gibson, Nicky Hardman, Paul Fletcher, Tony, James Male, Alan ‘Sammy’ Hampton.
Tony’s parent club were no slouches where youth development was concerned either. Youngsters were always being encouraged in an atmosphere of success.
Troon had U13s and U16s ever since I can remember; I think I played in the U13s when I was about 9…Monday nights was junior coaching at Troon and it was always busy.
I think because of the success that Troon had had in the village competition, you know, it went through the village, and beyond, I think, winning a national competition…but for us kids, you know, it was just football and rugby in the winter, and cricket in the summer!
For all that, Tony’s introduction to senior cricket was not with Troon. Gerald, his dad, was finishing his playing days with Holmans, and Tony would turn out for their Second XI. Don’t think for one second he was there to make up the numbers. At the age of 12, he was bowling 24 overs against Camborne, and would strive to bowl out Pip Tuckey when playing Penzance2.
He was shortly registering for Troon, though – Tony was too good an asset to lose. To be sure, players in their early teens aren’t normally in such high demand for senior XIs. Tony’s talent must have been prodigious, and not just as a bowler:
My dad always said to me, if you’re batting and you’re bowling, you’re always in the game. If you don’t get any runs or you don’t bowl well, you’ve always got a second bite of the cherry, really. And he was right.
It definitely got me into teams, because of the fact that I could bat, bowl and field. Back in the day, when I started [for Northants], you could possibly get away with being a bowler who couldn’t field; nowadays and towards the end of my career, you had to be a two-dimensional cricketer, at worst. If you were a bowler, you had to be able to field, else you just stuck out like a sore thumb. If you can’t field to an adequate level, it’s not acceptable, and it can cost you your place.
It was the best advice my dad ever gave me, to always be in the game. It was always good to have an opportunity to make an impact on the game, one way or the other.
I always think batting was my strongest suit though. But it was ironic that bowling got me in the first team at Northants, you know, the fourth seamer who could bat…
Tony had the dedication to back up his ability. Coaching books would be devoured. Boxes of balls would have their seams chalked (Tony wanted to make sure the ball left his hand correctly) and be carted down to the nets. He was 14, and wanted to get into the England Schools XI. ‘I was always very driven’, he told me.
Practice makes perfect…
Northamptonshire started taking an interest in Tony at this point, yet it wasn’t down to his performances in any schoolboy representative XI. A coaching course on a family holiday at Butlin’s led to Tony being invited to a more prestigious course at Clacton. His performance and attitude there got him two days at the MCC indoor school at Lord’s. There, he won Boy of the Year:
The impressive trophy was presented by the brylcreem boy, Denis Compton, and made the Cornish ‘papers3
One of the Butlin’s and MCC coaches, John Malfait, was a Northants man and passed Tony’s name on. Impressing in a county schoolboy match, Tony was invited up for a trial. He tuned up for this by scoring 140 for Cornwall U15s, then presented himself at The County Ground on Abington Avenue:
I walked into the changing room, and there was all these kids, 19, 20, I thought I’d got the wrong day! I was only 14 and not very big in those days. They said to me I was to come back in April for two weeks, and that’s basically what I did for Easter and summer holidays whenever I was available. Made my debut for Northants Seconds when I was 15. When I was 16, I was up for four or five weeks in the summer…
They really looked after me, I was billeted out to a family who couldn’t do enough for me. Really exciting time for me as a young person to be experiencing that kind of…you know, it was great!
It might be an old saw, but it’s certainly applicable in Tony’s case: talent always comes through. Tony didn’t just need to be good. He needed to be exceptional. Children from state schools are at a massive disadvantage compared to public schoolchildren when it comes to progressing in sport, especially cricket, and it’s getting worse. As there are very few public schools in Cornwall, the gulf is less pronounced and children are, by and large, on a level playing field. The further upcountry you go, and further up the cricketing ladder you climb, the more you discover that where you schooled matters as much as how you play a cover drive4.
England schoolboy. One of Tony’s least favourite photos
Opening the batting for England U15s with Mark Ramprakash
When we went as the West of England squad to the England Festival, the majority of [my team] were either from Millfield or Taunton. And then when I got into the England Schools set-up, there was probably only two or three of us in that England team that went to a Comprehensive. All the rest were from private schools.
I think it’s sad, cricket’s not coached enough, I think it’s all left to clubs, a lot of clubs have really strong junior set-ups. It seems to be an elitist sport, and private schools seem to benefit. It’s very much the way it is.
I remember…I think we were at the England Festival, at Hull, and I got some runs against the Midlands, my mum overheard two men talking, ‘I wonder which school this boy goes to..?’ My mum just turned around and said, ‘What does it matter?’
Unfortunately, whether we like it or not, the responsibility’s gonna fall on clubs, and build a relationship with local schools, that the schools can always push a child somewhere. It’s not an ideal situation, but thankfully I think a lot of clubs are doing the best they can to give kids the opportunity to play cricket.
Speaking of clubs, in August 1983 Tony made his First XI debut for Troon, in Senior One (West)5. Trust me, this is the best cricket in Cornwall:
I thought at the time I was probably just gonna make the numbers up! It was against Helston and we fielded first. Just before we went out to field, Terry Carter said to me, ‘First over at the top hedge?’ So I got the new ball!
It was a really great opportunity for me. Christ, you don’t get any better than that! It would have been easier [for Troon] to pick someone older in the Second Team, but for me it was dream come true! Ever since I was a kid it was all I could think about, they were my heroes, I could never ever see much further than playing for Troon First Team, so to do it so young was fantastic.
Tony wasn’t the only talented youngster in Cornish cricket at that time. Aged 16 in 1986, he made 41 for Troon First XI. For Camborne, that same week, another 16-year-old called Malcolm Pooley made 118 against Holmans. If Tony could take a hat-trick against St Just, Malcolm could notch up a ton against Penzance. To look back on these reports, it’s almost like the two teenagers were trying to out-wow the other6.
Malcolm signed professionally for Gloucestershire at the same time as Tony went to Northants (1988-89). In the 1990s he was Camborne’s star player, scoring runs for fun and forming a fearsome new-ball partnership with a tearaway fast bowler, Paul Berryman.
Me and Malcolm played a lot of Cornwall Schools together, we played for England South in an international tournament in Belfast…and won it! But there was rivalry as well, let’s be honest here, it was Camborne and Troon!
But I’d like to think that, with Malcolm and myself, we encouraged each other and pushed each other to get better. There’s not many Cornish lads that go on to play professional cricket, and when you’re out there you look out for each other, and hope that you’re all getting on and doing well.
When he went back to Camborne, it was sad, to be honest, because he’d done so well at Gloucester. Malcolm will always have my respect, he was a very very fine cricketer.
Northamptonshire professional
The Young England side that took on New Zealand in 1989. Back, l to r: Keith Butler, Wayne Noon, Mark Ilott, Piran Holloway. Middle, l to r: Tony, Dominic Cork, Richard Edmunds, Nick Knight, Ian Salisbury. Front, l to r: Ian Houseman, Graham Saville, Mark Ramprakash, Martyn Ball, Chris Adams.
With such a long immersion in the culture of professional cricket, Tony had no qualms about signing for Northants on a two year contract when he turned 18. This was extended after his first year, and he made his First Class debut a year later. But he still had a lot to learn:
When you play professionally, the bowling’s a little bit quicker, the batsmen hit it a little bit harder. The fielding…that for me is probably the biggest difference. The speed to the ball, and the anticipation. The really good fielders, they’re half-a-yard there already, whereas in club cricket sometimes people are sleeping, thinking ‘bout what they’re gonna do later.
That and the fact that there’s less bad balls, and mistakes just get punished. You bowl a bad ball in First Class cricket, invariably it’ll go for four. You might get away with it in club cricket.
Tony made the dream debut. In June 1989 he was picked to play the touring Australians:
I had Mark Taylor, the captain, first ball, then Geoff Marsh, the other opener, and Dean Jones. Pretty good – missed Allan Border though, that was the only thing!
Taylor played over 100 Tests for Australia, and both Marsh and Jones were 1987 World Cup winners, though Jones is perhaps best remembered for his near-mythical 210 against India in 19867. Tony returned figures of 3 for 56 off 15 overs, and must have been well pleased with his work. But cricket has a way of coming back to bite you. Batting in his first innings, Tony had to face up to Merv Hughes, a walrus-moustached bear of a man who classed all batsmen as prey. Second time round he met Terry Alderman, who wasn’t as quick but had bucketloads of skill8:
Wicket with my first ball, then a pair! The highs and lows of First Class cricket! Obviously that was my first exposure to these international cricketers…I was really unlucky the first innings, I just went to turn one off my hip, and I got a little nick, hit my thigh pad, bounced up, and David Boon was there at short leg. Second innings, I think I was LBW…well, many people have been ‘LBW, Alderman’ in their career, really!
But, y’know, if someone had said to me, you’ll get a pair, but you’ll take a wicket with your first ball, I think I would have taken that, against Australia!
First Class all-rounder?
Northampton Chronicle, April 24 1992, p34
The highs and lows…listening to Tony talk about his career reminds me in many ways of Simon Hughes’ award-winning 1997 cricketing tell-all, A Lot of Hard Yakka. If you want further insight into the life of a professional cricketer, go there. Tony initially struggled to secure a regular First Team spot, the local press labelling him early on as a one-day specialist9. Northants’ all-round kingpins at the time were David Capel, a man good enough to play 15 Tests for England and be hailed as the next Ian Botham, and Kevin Curran, a Zimbabwean who represented his country at the 1983 World Cup.
David Capel in action
Two of Kevin Curran’s sons, Tom and Sam, would go on to represent England10
Those two guys were top quality performers. And also, extremely fit guys. I think for me, seeing these guys operate, seeing what they did, that was good for me as a young player coming through.
It’s one of those things people don’t appreciate about professional sport. It’s bloody hard. It’s hard, just doing your skill sets, batting and bowling against the best players in the world. But then, obviously, you’ve got to manage the disappointments. Whether it’s injury, or lack of form, or lack of opportunity, they all come along at some point in your career.
But you’ve got two options. You either give in, or you deal with it. I did get categorised early on as a one-day player, because I could bat-bowl-field, and if you can do those three disciplines pretty well, you’re an asset to any one-day team.
Tony could score 130 and take two wickets for the Second XI, yet had to feed off scraps when promoted to the First XI11. You have to admire his resilience:
It was hard for me at the beginning, because I was batting in the top three in the second team, and sometimes opening the bowling, sometimes first change. So then when you come into the first team, you’re batting at seven or eight, and in those days it was three-day cricket. So if your team went well in the first innings, you might be going in with not many overs before you were going to declare.
I just felt it was quite hard for me to promote my batting at that time, I probably didn’t do myself justice. I probably should have scored more runs, but on the other hand the opportunity was not always there, batting that low down in that kind of cricket.
Thankfully later on in my career I was batting further up the order and got more of a chance to prove myself, really.
County Cricket in the 1990s
When Tony talks about the best players in the world, he isn’t kidding. Every County XI in the early 1990s could boast one or more international stars:
[Northants] was a very strong side. When I made my debut we had nine internationals. We had some really good overseas players, we had Winston Davis and Curtly Ambrose, and in those days you could have two overseas players and you could alternate them.
So…you could find yourself playing Lancashire Second XI, we had Ambrose, they had Patrick Patterson! Having that lessened your workload, obviously, but it really raised the standards of second team cricket.
Winston Davis hugs the stumps…
…Curtly Ambrose gives Mike Atherton some ‘chin music’…
Patterson was lightning…I can vouch for that! I opened the batting when we played him, second innings the game was pretty much dead, and he bowled four overs at the beginning, probably at three-quarter pace. Then he bowled me a full toss and I hit him for four. And I was probably strutting down the wicket a bit…
…the next ball hit my shoulder before I’d moved, and he looked at me as if to say, look, if you really want me to try…
There was some quick lads around and, on their day, if they got it right…it’s very difficult to say who was the quickest. I faced Shoaib Akhtar at Northampton on a slow one and he was still very very quick. Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram, Malcolm Marshall…top top performer. Then we had Greg Thomas13 early on in my career, who was touted to be the fastest white man on the planet, and when he got it right, he could really get it through.
In other words, even in a second team game you could be facing the fastest, nastiest bowlers on earth. Every team had one, and Northants had Curtly Ambrose, who was fearful to watch, even on television. Behind the scenes, though…
He was a totally different person. He didn’t like talking to the media. It wasn’t that he thought he was better than anyone else, he just didn’t feel comfortable. But with us, in the dressing room, he was great. He was always joking around, always funny, loved his music…what a person to have in your team! What a performer! I found him nothing but good value, really, and I travelled with him a few times in the car, and he was very supportive of us as a bowling unit.
To counter Ambrose’s complaints about dropped catches in the slips, Allan Lamb moved the big man himself to that position, and to have Curtly Ambrose geeing you on from the cordon was manna to Tony.
Allan Lamb knew how to socialise as well and moved in circles beyond the reach of mere cricketing mortals. Thanks to him, Tony’s 21st birthday was celebrated at Peter Stringfellow’s London nightclub. Let’s just say, their names were down.
Clearly the Northants changing room was a lively one, but some subjects were taboo. Lamb’s involvement with Ian Botham in the highly publicised and highly expensive ball-tampering scandal of the early 1990s was a place where his Northants team did not go. It was his money, Tony told me, so you let him spend it.
Litigants Allan Lamb (left) and Ian Botham attempt smiles14
Lack of first team opportunity early in his professional career was offset by Tony’s working relationship with the coach, Mike Procter. An all-action South African all-rounder, on his country’s isolation from international sport in the 1970s he joined Gloucestershire, his exploits for the county being such it was nicknamed ‘Proctershire’15. His laid back, self-expressive approach to cricket helped Tony settle in.
Tony ‘settles in’ to fielding at silly point
Plus, on occasion Tony could count on a familiar face from Cornwall. David Roberts, a fellow Troon boy, joined the club in 1996. In 1991 the West Indian all-rounder Eldine Baptiste joined Northants, and led the averages with 49 wickets. He had previously played Cornish cricket for St Gluvias, and is arguably the fastest, most terrifying bowler seen in Cornwall to this day16.
He was great with us young guys! He would give us loads of advice, but also he loved coming out and having a beer with us on Friday nights. We used to go into town, ring him up, ‘Eldine, we’re going into town…’ It could be your first year on the staff or you could be Allan Lamb, he was just the same with everyone. Really, really good.
Some reminders of the West Country in professional cricket though were less welcome. Warwickshire had a pugnacious batsman at the time called Roger Twose, who was born in Torquay. Eventually he played test cricket for New Zealand and is currently the Director of New Zealand Cricket17. What he called Tony in a match where Tony was batting was so bad Tony complained to the umpire; I’ll refrain from printing the actual words here. But I will reproduce Tony’s response to Twose:
If you ever say that again, I’ll beat this bleddy bat ‘round your ‘ead!
Meanwhile, David Capel and Kevin Curran practically took Tony under their wing:
There was always encouragement. You’re always fully aware when you’re playing sport that one of your mates is also trying to take your spot. It’s just the way it is. I never felt that there wasn’t that encouragement, you tried to enjoy each other’s success as well. But they were two fine players, sadly no longer with us.
A professional’s cricket season is arduous. Before the County Championship adopted a two division format in 2000, a County XI would play 22 matches from late April to mid-September. That’s before you add in the Sunday League fixtures, and the two (Benson and Hedges, Natwest) one day competitions. In 1991, for example, Northants finished a game against Glamorgan in Cardiff on May 24. They had to be in Leeds the following day to start a fixture against Yorkshire. They were in Maidstone playing Kent on July 4; on July 5, they were in Leicestershire18.
It’s a tough life as well, it’s not all glamour, and it’s not all good. When you’re a young player as well, especially back then, wages were rubbish! My first full year, first contract at 18, I was on two grand for six months, and I had to pay £960 in rent! You’re not playing for the money! Basically, if you get on and become a capped player, you’ll do fine. But it’s a hard road getting to that point, and a lot of people don’t make it.
In those days, [a season] was 90 days of cricket. That’s a tough old season! And the travelling, we used to drive ourselves, there was no buses in those days, no team bus, not ‘til the last year of my career!
Interviewed by the West Briton in 1995, Tony stated he drove on average 10,000 miles every summer, plus all the cricket19.
One conjures up an image of the country’s motorways clogged during the summer months with the vehicles of numerous professional cricketers, crammed with hungover and/or injured passengers and unwashed kit, flooring it to a venue several hundred miles away. Once there, they’re expected to perform to the best of their abilities, all over again. The glory days, however, make it all seem worthwhile.
A Cornishman at Lord’s
On the balcony at Lord’s. From left: Mike Procter, Tony, Kevin Curran, Curtly Ambrose
Northants beat Leicestershire at Lord’s to win the 1992 Natwest Trophy. Tony was in the XI, and was treated to an article in a Northampton ‘paper:
Northampton Chronicle, September 5 1992, p31. Tony’s father Gerald had played for Troon at Lord’s in 1973
Generally described as a dull, one-sided affair (Leicester crawled to 208 off 60 overs; Northants took most of 50 overs to pass the total for the loss of two wickets), playing a Lord’s Final is always special20:
It was wonderful! We bowled really well, we fielded really well. We suffocated Leicester, really. We lost an early wicket, but then Alan Fordham and Rob Bailey had a really good partnership and then all the nerves settled. You just felt that the longer the day went on and the more the sun got on the wicket, it would have been ours to lose, and it turned out that way. We won comfortably.
It’s a great feeling to play in a Lord’s Final, I was very lucky to play in three. But to win one is just a super experience. It really is.
You can play at Lord’s when there’s hardly anyone there and there’s an atmosphere, when it’s 30,000 full it’s just amazing. Empty or full, any day of the week! Derby on the other hand was just a soulless ground. Taunton’s a lovely ground to play cricket, very close. Supporters are very close to you, always a good atmosphere.
1992 was a good year for Tony. He was the Second Team’s player of the year, winning a cheque for £25021.
Tony soaks it up
1992 was a busy year for me. I was in and out of the First Team, when I wasn’t playing First Team I was playing Second Team…and I think in August I played something like 28 days out of 31, or something stupid! It was crazy, when you’re living on your own, you’re a bunch of lads and you’ve got to do your own washing, it wasn’t much fun!
But yeah, I played really good cricket that year, I think winning the Second Team player of the year was mainly down to the fact that I’d played a lot of First Team cricket.
Tony was committed, and he was loyal. The only time he seriously considered a move from Northants was in 1998, when Kevin Curran was captain. Curran only wanted one all-rounder in the XI (himself), and Gloucestershire were making approaches, but…
…I’d had a good year, forced my way into the First Team. And the club had got wind of Gloucester, so they wanted to keep me and offered a three year contract.
So I had a little bit of bargaining power, and I was getting near a benefit as well. So…I stayed at Northants, and they looked after me financially. I’ve got no regrets on that, as nice as it would have been to be closer to home, I was pretty settled in Northampton at that point. I feel quite proud of the fact that I only played for one club.
Tony stuck with Northants, and learnt to cope with Wasim Akram reverse-swinging the ball at 90mph on Old Trafford’s super-fast track, or to grudgingly accept that Graham Gooch (upright stance, massive bat, hunger for runs) was usually going to score a ton. In 1994 he was awarded his County Cap after a match at Taunton:
We were chasing 300-odd and were about 150-5! Me and Curtly put on a partnership, and I ended up on 80 not out, I think we won by about two or three wickets. And I got my cap that day.
Tony hooks one away
That was really important for me, you know, your money goes up as soon as you’re a capped player! So that was a big thing. But also I think it was the realisation of my efforts over those years had not gone unnoticed and finally, you feel like you’ve served your time. That was a really important day.
Other important days were around the corner. Tony played in two more Lord’s one day Finals, against Warwickshire in 1995 (Natwest), and Lancashire in 1996 (Benson & Hedges). In the first, two catches were dropped off his bowling (including a chance from his old friend Roger Twose, who went on to make 68), Trevor Penney ran him out for five, and Dermot Reeve survived a plumb-LBW shout to make a match-turning innings. ‘We were stuffed’, Tony said22.
Prior to the 1996 Final, Tony had form against Lancashire, putting on 112 for the eighth wicket with John Emburey in 1995 to steal a one day cup-tie against the Lancastrians. A year later, he was optimistic ahead of the Lord’s showdown, and said so in the Press:
We believe we are a good side when the pressure is on whereas Lancashire, we feel, are inclined to panic a little…
Chasing 245, Lancashire’s Ian Austin picked up four wickets and Northants were dismissed for 21423.
Northants #1 all-rounder
Tony carves one over the top in a one day game
By 1999 Tony had a new contract and was fully committed to Northants. Two other things happened to make this year the most successful of his career. The first was a change in how cricketers prepared themselves for a long season:
One of the best things that happened in the latter part of my career was that cricket became more professional, there was more money in it, and we started having training programmes. I learnt a lot more about myself and the fitness side of things.
I would work on my overall fitness during the winter months. I didn’t pick up a cricket bat from the end of the season until January. I had a month off at the end of the season, and then November to January would be spent in the gym or running, six days a week. Then after Christmas we would up the training but also bring in the skills in the indoor school. It worked for me, it doesn’t work for everyone!
Fitness for a cricketer no longer meant bowling off a few paces in the nets followed by some gentle catching practice. A beer in the changing room after play was replaced by an ice bath (which, I have to say, was an innovation Tony doesn’t look favourably on).
I was probably late 20s, then all of a sudden you’re finding that you’re growing, you’re getting stronger and you’re getting quicker even as you’re getting older, because of the education you’re receiving from the trainers around you.
Look, being an all-rounder is a tough job. There’s no respite from it. So if that’s a career that you want, you have to be fit enough to do it. I always felt that was the one thing I could really control, you can’t control what decisions happen on the pitch, sometimes your form dips or whatever. But if you know that you’ve taken care of the fitness side of it, and you need to make sure you’re fit enough to get through a season…
From when I finished [2003], to where cricket is now, it’s a totally different game. You see the guys playing one day cricket in the field, they’re top quality athletes, they really are!
All his cricketing life, Tony had worked hard and driven himself to get where he was. His new-found focus on overall fitness meant he was ready for the next step.
By 1999, David Capel had retired and Kevin Curran was looking to move on. The position of prime all-rounder in the Northants first team was suddenly looking vacant. Tony, with a long apprenticeship and greater conditioning, was ready to step up, and being Tony, he grabbed the opportunity with both hands. No longer a one-day specialist for the reporters, suddenly Tony was a
…pivotal figure… [who was] …revelling in the all-rounder’s position.
Another ‘paper noted he had finally ‘Stepped out of Curran’s shadow’. And then some. He was Northants’ Player of the Year and even captained the side in several matches25.
I thought it got the best out of me, having added responsibility…it’s hard work in one day cricket, when you’re trying to bowl and think about the next things, it’s very mentally draining. And towards the end of my career I was vice-captain at the club and obviously stepped in to the role as and when needed. If [the captaincy] came to me, great, I had a lot on my plate anyway, and when I did it I was very proud to do it, but I wasn’t shouting for it!
This one is Tony’s personal favourite
Tony was now a top five batsman, a front-line seamer and vice-captain with Northants. In 2002, he was awarded a benefit season, a largely tax-exempt financial bonus that long serving and successful professionals traditionally look on as a nest egg toward the latter part of their careers26.
Devastated
Northampton Chronicle, September 4 2003, p40
Yet by the close of the 2003 season, and completely out of the blue, Tony’s contract wasn’t renewed. The club issued the following statement:
At the end of the day, it was felt the club couldn’t make a commitment to him until he had proved his fitness over a lengthy period in competitive cricket.
At the time, Tony himself was quoted as being ‘devastated’27. Even now, it still rankles:
It disappointed me because…the thing is, I’d been very lucky, all my career, with regards to injuries, and in 2001 I played a whole season with a prolapsed disc in my back which was really difficult! I got through the season, and two games before the end of the season I needed an injection in my shoulder as well. So I’d put my body on the line and literally I think it was two or three weeks after the end of the season I had an operation on my back.
I’d never been one to miss a lot of cricket. And then I just had a silly Achilles tendon problem, that occurred the Christmas before the [2003] season started. These things can really take time to heal and it wasn’t ready for the start of the season. I was able to practice but I couldn’t run a lot.
Tony would have skippered a lot of games that season, and Northants were desperate to get him back on the pitch. In the end, though, he spent a lot of time in surgery and only managed one Championship game in 2003. Northants gained promotion to Division One28.
An anti-inflammatory injection into the tendon merely led to another injury, and Tony was back to square one.
I played a lot in the Second Team, just batting and fielding at slip. I couldn’t bowl. Running between the wickets was a real problem, but I was keeping my eye in, you know? I was getting runs, and feeling confident, so if I did get fit, and got back in the First Team, I was ready.
…then I niggled it again in my recovery, but I got back in August. I played in the Second Team, bowled 20 overs in the day, I was back in the squad for the Sunday League…
Playing a gentle game of soccer in a Second Team warm up, Tony felt like he’d been ‘shot in the leg’: the muscle had ruptured again.
That was the end of my season – but my contract was up.
Northants had also been taken to the cleaners by one of their accountants to the tune of £80K29.
And the club…decided…not to give me another contract. But I’d been told, with rest over the winter, that I would make a full recovery.
Another player who had had an injury-hit season had been given until April 2004 to prove his fitness, but not Tony.
I said to the club, look, the reason I’ve been having these injuries is because I’ve been trying to get back on the pitch, and feeling like I’ve been pressurised to get back on the pitch. I’ve done everything I can to get back…I asked them if they’d spoken to the club doctor, and they said no!
So I said, you’re basically concerned about my fitness, but you haven’t spoken to the club doctor. That’s rubbish! After twenty years’ association with this Club, and everything I’ve done, be honest with me.
I just thought it was really poor. You always know the day’s going to come, when you’ve got to make the decision, or the decision’s made for you, but if you’re going to do it, do it the right way.
Time’s a great healer, but it wasn’t good, the way it was done.
Troon Boy
A young Tony on the oche at the old Troon clubhouse with John Lowe. Being Tony, he won
Tony’s benefit had happened at the right time. He now runs the UK office of a German owned joinery company in Northampton.
It seems, though, you can take the boy out of Cornwall, but you can’t take Cornwall out of the boy. Tony played Minor Counties cricket for Cornwall until 2006, thus proving to a certain extent that he still had gas in the tank. He also keeps an eye on Troon, his old club, who after withdrawing from all forms of cricket in 2021, reformed a year later. This year, 2025, Troon CC celebrates its 150th birthday30.
It was really sad [when they folded], really sad. When you look at iconic clubs in Cornish cricket, Troon is right up there. So to see something that has been quite a big part of my life, not only the club but the clubhouse, that used to be separate to the club, I spent hours down there as a kid! To see all that go, and the club struggle and not play for a season, was really sad.
You just hope that the club keeps going. 150 years is a fantastic achievement. You hope that the cricketers of today and those running the club will keep going and keep being an inspiration to the younger kids in the village, and giving them the opportunities that we had, when we were young.
I’m forever grateful for the cricket club, and the village, for what they gave me.
My previous Cornish sporting hero was John Collins, the Camborne, Cornwall and England Rugby player. Find out all about him here.
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The quotes and information can be found in: Northampton Chronicle, June 12 1999, p44; Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, July 22 1999, 74; September 20 1999, p20.
Francis Edwards ~ The Cornish Historian 