His parents held a highly respectable position in society

His parents held a highly respectable position in society

William Litt, the author of Wrestliana, was born at Bowthorn, near Whitehaven, in November, 1785. His parents held a highly respectable position in society, and he received a liberal education, with the object of fitting him for a clergyman in the Church of England. This intention was, however, given up, in consequence of a manifest tendency to out-door sports, and a "loose" sort of life. The parents seeing that young Litt had rendered himself in some measure unfit for the Church, placed him with a neighbouring farmer to get an insight into practical, as well as theoretical, agricultural pursuits. On arriving at manhood, with a vacillation much regretted in after life, farming was neglected and abandoned.

Source: Wrestlings and Wrestlers