Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Doctoral Research -- Social History of Cornish Wrestling
Thursday, April 28, 2005
I am currently in the process of attempting to complete a PhD in the social history of Cornish wrestling. I originally registered with the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University, but soon after being appointed at Marjon, transferred to the University of Exeter’s Institute of Cornish Studies, based at Tremough in Cornwall. I am at the start of the writing up stage, having finished the primary research.
During the latter part of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century, Cornish wrestling, which is distinctive to the county, was Cornwall’s most popular sport, with hundreds of participants, and thousands of spectators attending the larger events. Its popularity also spread to many other parts of the world, when economic conditions forced a large proportion of Cornwall’s most economically active males to find work abroad. There were wrestling tournaments in the Cornish style, being fought in places as far afield as California, South Australia and the Transvaal, even up to the 1920s and 1930s. The popularity of the sport also extended to London, where sporting entrepreneurs, mainly publicans, organised and promoted wrestling in the Cornish style from the 1820s through to the 1850s, often with very lucrative prizes.
However, given this level of popularity, it is rather intriguing to discover that there has been very little written about the sport, and what has been, has been at the superficial level, lacking any kind of academic rigour. There has also been only passing references to the sport in the Cornish Studies literature. My research is therefore an attempt to redress this balance, by providing an academic investigation into Cornish wrestling.
In particular I am interested in trying to explain why the sport has managed to survive, whilst the majority of ‘traditional’ activities either died away or were transformed significantly by the so-called ‘rational recreation’ movement in the mid nineteenth century. I have used a model, first proposed by Payton (1992), which demonstrates that Cornwall’s experience is different from other areas of England, and that ‘difference’ has persisted over time largely due to the county’s peripheral status – it is geographically and culturally at the extreme; it had a unique constitutional arrangement, being a Duchy and therefore not entirely part of the kingdom; it was, and to a certain extent still retains a number of ‘Celtic’ features; the Cornish see themselves as different and not English, and indeed many non-Cornish perceive them as different. Cornish wrestling has survived even into the 21st century because the Cornish do not want it to disappear – it is seen as an important symbol of Cornishness.
References
Payton, P.J. (1992) The Making of Modern Cornwall: Historical experience and the persistence of ‘difference’. Redruth: Dyllansow Truran
Mike Tripp
Posted by at 3:28 PM
Edited on: Friday, April 29, 2005 11:54 AM
I am currently in the process of attempting to complete a PhD in the social history of Cornish wrestling. I originally registered with the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University, but soon after being appointed at Marjon, transferred to the University of Exeter’s Institute of Cornish Studies, based at Tremough in Cornwall. I am at the start of the writing up stage, having finished the primary research.
During the latter part of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century, Cornish wrestling, which is distinctive to the county, was Cornwall’s most popular sport, with hundreds of participants, and thousands of spectators attending the larger events. Its popularity also spread to many other parts of the world, when economic conditions forced a large proportion of Cornwall’s most economically active males to find work abroad. There were wrestling tournaments in the Cornish style, being fought in places as far afield as California, South Australia and the Transvaal, even up to the 1920s and 1930s. The popularity of the sport also extended to London, where sporting entrepreneurs, mainly publicans, organised and promoted wrestling in the Cornish style from the 1820s through to the 1850s, often with very lucrative prizes.
However, given this level of popularity, it is rather intriguing to discover that there has been very little written about the sport, and what has been, has been at the superficial level, lacking any kind of academic rigour. There has also been only passing references to the sport in the Cornish Studies literature. My research is therefore an attempt to redress this balance, by providing an academic investigation into Cornish wrestling.
In particular I am interested in trying to explain why the sport has managed to survive, whilst the majority of ‘traditional’ activities either died away or were transformed significantly by the so-called ‘rational recreation’ movement in the mid nineteenth century. I have used a model, first proposed by Payton (1992), which demonstrates that Cornwall’s experience is different from other areas of England, and that ‘difference’ has persisted over time largely due to the county’s peripheral status – it is geographically and culturally at the extreme; it had a unique constitutional arrangement, being a Duchy and therefore not entirely part of the kingdom; it was, and to a certain extent still retains a number of ‘Celtic’ features; the Cornish see themselves as different and not English, and indeed many non-Cornish perceive them as different. Cornish wrestling has survived even into the 21st century because the Cornish do not want it to disappear – it is seen as an important symbol of Cornishness.
References
Payton, P.J. (1992) The Making of Modern Cornwall: Historical experience and the persistence of ‘difference’. Redruth: Dyllansow Truran
Mike Tripp
Posted by at 3:28 PM
Edited on: Friday, April 29, 2005 11:54 AM
# posted by A Sociologist : 1:35 PM
