Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; to Which is Added Notes on Bull and Badger BaitingRobinson, Jacob
History
Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; to Which is Added Notes on Bull and Badger Baiting
Robinson, Jacob
Wrestlers; Wrestling
A fitting conclusion to the preceding notice of the much esteemed Bunny
Park baronet, will be come to by bestowing a passing notice on the
monumental memorial erected to his memory, in Broadmore church,
Nottinghamshire. The "ruling passion" is made apparent, even after death
had given Sir Thomas the last "Hugg." On one side of the monument he is
represented in wrestling attitude; on another he appears thrown a back fall
by Time. The following is a free translation of the Latin inscription:--
"Here lies, O Time! the victim of thy hand,
The noblest Wrestler on the British strand;
His nervous arm each bold opposer quell'd,
In feats of strength by none but thee excell'd;
Till springing up at the last trumpet's call,
He conquers thee, who, will have conquer'd all."
The inscription further depicts him as an estimable landlord; for it is
recorded on the tablet, that with his wife's fortune he purchased estates,
and erected for the tenants new farm houses.
Sir Thomas Parkyns died in 1751.
In his will there is bequeathed a guinea a year to be wrestled for every
midsummer day at Broadmore.
We venture to surmise that our north country readers--more especially those
interested in the sport half a century ago--will be struck with a
similarity in the wrestling career and character of Sir Thomas Parkyns, and
one of the great ornaments and enthusiastic advocates of the northern ring,
namely, Professor Wilson. To us it appears there is a striking similitude.
One, like the other, ranks amongst the cleverest and most scientific in
their different modes of wrestling; one, like the other, had about the same
social standing; one, like the other, somewhat eccentric in early life. One
delighted with encouraging and upholding his favourite amusement in Bunny
Park; the other happy when he could get together a goodly muster of
athletes from the villages, the valleys, and mountain sides of the Lake
district, at Bowness, Low Wood, or Ambleside--all within easy walking
distance of Elleray, his beautifully situate Windermere mansion.
WRESTLING IN SCOTLAND.
In the year 1827, a society styled the "Saint Ronan's Border Club," was
established at Innerleithen, near Peebles, the object of which was to
revive the old martial spirit of the Borders, to encourage the practice of
out-door sports and pastimes, and to yield amusement to the visitors of
this sequestered watering place. Lockhart, in his life of Sir Walter Scott,
(after giving an account of the publication of the novel of _St. Ronan's
Well_, in 1823,) thus proceeds to describe the establishment of the annual
gathering at Innerleithen:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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