Looks like George may have been trying to raise some money for his emigration to New Zealand:
Wreford v. Manning.-The plaintiff, George Wreford, now of Tiverton, sued Mr. John Manning, high bailiff of this Court, for the recovery of £2 odd, which he alleged to be due for the keep of a horse, &c. – Mr. Shapland for plaintiff. – Mr. Manning said the claim was four years old; it dated Feb., 1861, and plaintiff passed the Insolvent Debtors’ Court on the 23rd April in that year, so that whatever was due to the estate belonged to his creditors. – After repeated and ineffectual attempts to elicit from the plaintiff the dates when Mr. Manning put his horses to pasturage and when they were withdrawn, &c., his Honour determined to adjourn the case, that a bill of particulars might be furnished. If he had to make out the account it might take him a week. -Mr. Shapland: – Not quite so long as that. -His Honour: I will not make out the account for him; the rule requires that he shall furnish a bill of particulars with dates, &c., and not merely: To keep of horse, £2. -Case adjourned.
And a couple columns over…
Wreford v Cummings. – An action for the recovery of £2 8s., alleged to be due from Mrs.Cummings, of Witheridge, for two months keep of a cow and 10s. on some other account. – The latter claim was disallowed, as plaintiff was a bankrupt at the time the debt was said to have been contracted, and the money (if due at all) belonged to his creditors.-Mr. Manning (the high bailiff) said he had put in two executions in virtue of which Wreford had been sold up. He (Mr.M.) took the fields in question of him, and allowed him for the rent in the settlement.-Plaintiff said he never made a bargain with any body.-His Honour:-Then you are not in a position to sue any body. Judgment for the defendant.
North Devon Journal – 17 Nov 1864, p6 [South Molton County Courts]
On the hunt for William’s death certificate, I realised I hadn’t attached an 1861 census record to him yet.
The Wreford Pedigree recorded his death date as November 1866 and the last census I had him on was the 1851. The only appropriate death record I could find was registered in East London but didn’t know whether it was the right guy. So I searched for William WREFORD and found one in the house of his sister, Sarah BROOKS:
1861 Census – William WREFORD staying with his sister, Sarah BROOKS
I checked that William did indeed have a sister called Sarah (baptised 18 Apr 1797 in Morchard Bishop, Devon to the same parents, John & Mary) and then checked for a marriage between a Sarah WREFORD and a man named BROOKS.
Sarah WREFORD baptism
Marriage of Charles BROOKS & Sarah WREFORD (Chulmleigh, Devon)
It all checked out and I am confident that the William living with his sister in 1861 IS my William WREFORD (b. 1793). I ordered the death certificate and hoped there was some clue as to how he ended up in London. Unfortunately there was not. Since then, I learned that both his eldest son William (1817) and his daughter, Elizabeth lived in London at the time and am still tracing his other children. More information can be found in my ‘Wrestling with Death‘ post.
William WREFORD was my famous (in those times) wrestling ancestor hailing from Devon (previously mentioned here and here). So, the fact that the only likely death entry for him was registered in London was a bit worrying for me. Could I be confident this was really him?
Luckily, I had found a newspaper article mentioning he had died ‘in the metropolis’ to help put my mind at ease:
DEATH OF A RENOWNED DEVONSHIRE WRESTLER. – On Sunday last the veteran William Wreford died after a very short illness at the house of one of his children, in the metropolis. (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette (Friday, 07 December, 1866)
The Wreford Pedigree also notes that he died 26 November 1866 aged 74 which matches the death record, so I’m confident this is my William WREFORD.
The death record states William, a yeoman, died of ‘Natural decay’ on 26 November 1866 at 5 New Street, Bishopsgate [London]. However, the informant is listed as Thomas Cusiok/Cuscok (also living at 5 New Street), NOT one of his children.
Two of his children were living in London around this time. William’s son, also named William, had been living in London from at least 1840 – he had married at St Dunstan in the East, and was in the censuses until 1861 as living in the court behind St Clement’s church, Eastcheap. (He was in the police force but by 1871, he was a ‘coffee house keeper’ a little further north in Paul Street.)
Also, his daughter, Elizabeth had married a mariner (Alexander SMALL) in London, 1853 and was a widowed lodging house keeper by the 1871 census (where she lived further north in Tower Hamlets – I’m yet to find her on the 1861 census). Could Thomas Cusiok have been one of her lodgers?
I had some credits to spare at ‘Find My Past’ so I trawled the newspapers and found some references to my ‘celebrity’ ancestor, William WREFORD (introduced here).
In the Western Times (Tuesday, February 27, 1866):
Western Times – Tuesday 27 Feb 1866
The eyes of all classes of politicians are now on the pretty town of Tiverton, but we believe it is not generally known that there is now residing among us the greatest of living wrestlers. We allude to that respectable old yeoman, Mr. William Wreford, who may be truly said to be the hero of a hundred contests in the wrestling ring. The admirers of this most manly and ancient sport will be glad to hear that Mr. Wreford, though several years above seventy, still carries his manly figure erect, and has the most retentive memory. Mr. Wreford suddenly shot up to the height of fame by throwing the terrible Jordan at a great contest at Crediton, in 1812, when he was but nineteen years of age, and his huge opponent was in the prime of life. Mr. Wreford is a noble specimen, both as regards personal strength and social qualities of the good old English yeoman.
Later that year, the following was printed in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette (Friday, 07 December, 1866):
Exeter and Plymouth Gazette – Friday 7 December 1866
DEATH OF A RENOWNED DEVONSHIRE WRESTLER. – On Sunday last the veteran William Wreford died after a very short illness at the house of one of his children, in the metropolis. Mr. Wreford bore a name familiar to all the lovers of wrestling, both in the provinces and the metropolis. Indeed, there is probably none who appeared before the public so frequently and for such a long period as he did, for though by profession he was, like his ancestors, a farmer, yet he passionately loved the most ancient of all pastimes, and for a period of nearly thirty years generally contrived to be present at all the great wrestling matches in Devonshire, and almost invariably maintained the high reputation which he gained before he was twenty years of age. Mr. Wreford was born at Morchard Bishop, near Crediton, the inhabitants of which have been from time immemorial noted for their great stature and strength. Indeed, the father of Abraham Cann, the champion wrestler, was a native of Morchard Bishop, and according to the testimony of the ancients was in many respects a superior wrestler to his renowned son. At 18 years of age, Mr. Wreford attended a great wrestling match at Crediton, and at its close stood high in the prize list; this was in 1811. The next year his name became a household word throughout the whole county, for having again contended at Crediton, nearly at the close of the play he found himself pitted against the terrible Jordan, a man of gigantic stature and strength, and who according to one author was so feared in the Plymouth wrestling ring that the committee at last excluded him in their advertisements from contending for the prizes offered by them; but at Crediton Jordan was destined to play the part of Goliath, for after twenty minutes contention, Mr. Wreford succeeded in throwing his huge adversary such a tremendous back fall, that the crash occasioned thereby was almost similar to that produced by the felling of an oak tree, and young Wreford amid the deafening applause of an immense concourse of all classes was triumphantly carried on the shoulders of several stalwart men to the Ship Hotel, in Crediton, there to receive from the committee something more weighty, if not so verdant, than that which the Grecian heroes of old were crowned. In 1813 Mr. Wreford visited the metropolis and contended with the champion Fouracres, whom he threw the best Cornish wrestlers at Plymouth, and, with one or two others of their party, bore off very heavy prizes. In 1825 the writer was personally witness to a great gathering of renowned wrestlers at Credition, when there was a vast assemblage of gentry and yeomen, who betted freely on their favourites. At this memorable match Mr. Wreford had to contend with the renowned James Stone (who on account of his prodigious strength and activity was nicknamed by one of the London daily papers “The Little Elephant”) and a terrible encounter ensued, for the men grappled with each other in such a way as almost to realise Homer’s description of the struggle beween Ajax and Ulysses. In truth the first shock resembled the meeting of two fierce bulls. At first Mr. Wreford appeared to have the advantage, but before ten minutes had elapsed he was literally hurled into the air, and fell with terrific violence on his back; yet he was quickly on his legs again, declaring that he would seize the first opportunity of recovering his lost laurels. Not long after he and Mr. Stone again met at Southmolton, when for the first half hour they contended with varying success, after which it was apparent that the strength of the “Little Elephant” was the most unduring, and at the end of seventy minutes, Mr. Wreford having been much shaken by repeated falls on his side, was reluctantly compelled to give over the contest through his opponent with his usual magnanimty offered to forego claiming the prize until the next day, thinking that his friend’s indomitable pluck and well-known elasticity of body might possibly then enable him to renew the struggle. That this was no fanciful picture, the fact of Mr. Wreford throwing, six or seven years afterwards, the celebrated Cornish wrestler Francis Olver, though several of his ribs were broken before he took his opponent by the collar is, we think, conclusive evidence. Until the last few months Mr. Wreford has been residing at Tiverton; and when we saw him in January last he was as erect as a bean-stick, and in every respect appeared twenty years younger than he really was. He then gave us an extraordinary proof of the retentiveness of his memory, for testing his many statements by the records of the Crediton Old Wrestling Club, we invariably found them correct. Mr. Wreford was a well informed, genial-hearted old man, full of anecdotes of celebrated wrestlers and of scenes of the old coaching days and he and Mr. Robert Stone, brother of Mr. James Stone, and himself a renowned wrestler, quite laughed at the general idea of the “dangers of the wrestling ring,” and well vindicated the practice of wrestling, which had been handed down in rural districts from father to son for many hundred years, and both, to the writer’s great amazement, declared that their legs were without a blemish, though they must have received thousands of severe kicks.
I had some credits to spare at ‘Find My Past’ so I trawled the newspapers and found a death notice for George WREFORD’s daughter, Harriet in 1858.
Death Notice of Harriet WREFORD -1858
“April 29, at Witheridge, aged 7 years, Harriet, second daughter of Mr. George Wreford, Commercial Inn.”
It seems my WREFORDs may not have run the Hare and Hounds after all (see previous post, Pub Crawl). Although it is possible they could have run both during their life in Witheridge – this has been the only time I’ve found where the inn was named.
The Commercial Inn in Witheridge, Devonshire closed sometime after 1894. The Witheridge Historical Archive website has a gap between the 1850 and 1878 directories for the inn’s keepers and I’m still yet to find a directory for the area circa 1861.
