Cumberland Wrestling Champions. 67 



have done. Far more money is now given in prizes ; 

 but somehow or other these rival counties do not take 

 the same pride in their champions as of yore. You 

 rarely hear the sport mentioned, except about Easter 

 or Carlisle Race time. Champions are not reveren- 

 tially pointed out to the rising generation at market 

 or on the road ; and two young fellows having a bout 

 on a summer evening, would seem nearly as strange a 

 sight, even to a resident, as if a couple of the Yeo- 

 manry cavalry had suddenly mounted their uniforms 

 and their chargers, and gone into a meadow or down 

 a " green lonning," to practise the sword exercise. 



The first prize, a purse with " five gold guineas" in 

 it, was contended for at Carlisle races, in September, 

 1809, and was won by Tom Nicholson of Threlkeld. 

 " Two purses of gold" were given the next year ; and 

 for three years in succession Nicholson was the cham- 

 pion. The prize on the third occasion was twenty 

 guineas, and " all persons emulous of distinguishing 

 themselves in these athletic exercises, so much ex- 

 celled in by our forefathers, are desired to appear on 

 the ground at nine o'clock in the morning." This re- 

 ference to antiquity was made in 1811 ; but the most 

 diligent ghoul in the matter has failed to discover the 

 existence of any records before the era of Tom Nichol- 

 son. Will Richardson of Caldbeck was second to that 

 hero of 1810, and the science, which was gradually 

 developed, brought matters up to fever-heat in 1813, 

 when a ring, seventy yards in diameter, was enclosed 

 by ropes, and about fifteen thousand people, headed 

 by the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of Queensberry, 

 and Earl Lonsdale, stood or sat round it. " Barney" 

 was not much in vogue. The buttock and the cross- 

 buttock were the favourite chips, and " many of the 

 men were struck from the ground upwards of five 

 feet." "The Cumberland Shepherd" won the belt; 

 and amongst those who went to grass was George 

 Dennison, the bone-setter, who dislocated an oppo- 



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