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Jump straight to Ron Historyo’s On the Trail of Carver Doone

Whilst we have previously questioned some aspects of Atholl Oakeley’s interpretation of wrestling history  we will willingly give him some credit. He was a creative and talented promoter and a major player in the resurgence of British wrestling in the 1930s. He was also the  creator of some of wrestling’s greatest characters,  one of whom was Carver Doone. Oakeley was obsessed with Lorna Doone, a novel by Richard Doddridge Blackmore. In “Blue Blood On the Mat” he writes that he took one look at Jack Baltus and immediately named him after Blackmore’s creation, Lorna Doone.

Carver Doone was the stuff of legends. Irrespective of any wrestling skill he may or may not have possessed few names are as evocative as the name given to Jack Baltus. 

Although Oakeley portrays Carver Doone as some invincible monster, “The Frankenstein of Devon,” the results we have seen suggest something otherwise. Doone was said to stand seven feet tall, we’d settle on 6’9″ max. Doone was a headline act for Oakeley, said to weigh anything up to 29 stones. Certainly a tall, well built man, but no monster, he was well proportioned. It wasn’t just the height or the name that were fictitious. Carver Doone was not from Devon (he was from London), he hadn’t met all the best American wrestlers whilst living there for two years (he may have boxed in America), and we seriously doubt that he was a product of the public school system or had worked on the Stock Exchange. 

Returning from Canada in February, 1932, Carver Doone was quickly seized upon by Oakeley and persuaded to ready himself for life as a professional wrestler. Oakeley did a good job at making the giant, already heavyweight champion of Devon and Cornwall (more fiction) look almost invincible.

Carver Doone’s over-reliance on his size and strength made him something of a novelty and led inevitably to a short career that fizzled out in 1938. Opponents were carefully chosen to allow him to create his monster of the mat persona. Men like Jack Pye, Izzy Van Dutz,  Norman the Butcher,  and Ben Sherman were regular opponents with the qualities of being famous names, less than fully blown heavyweights, and a generosity to make him look good. Occasionally other big men of limited ability such as Jumbo Giles and John Bell would be matched with him but put Carver Doone in with a wrestler of Douglas Clark’s calibre and the result was very different. Clark had the strength to lift and toss Doone at will, it taking just thirteen minutes for the champion of Devon and Cornwall to lay battered, bruised and stretched out on the mat face downwards.

Irrespective of wrestling ability, or lack of it,  in the wonderful world of professional wrestling we feel he deserves acknowledgment as one of the top wrestlers of the 1930s.

Ron Historyo Takes up the Story and Goes …. On The Trail of Carver Doone

If you remember the sensation of Giant Haystacks, a man of great proportions  who would emblazon in many memories what it was like to see a giant of a man, you might like to appreciate that the first British Giant wrestler was further back in time.​

In wrestling large men can soon have their heights exaggerated. Once pitted against John Quinn  or Pat Roach who were both about six four, six five, Haystacks , if you look carefully perhaps only looked 3 inches or so taller. Even so that is a huge man.​

Carver Doone was an Atholl Oakeley creation and like Haystacks, they chose to bill his height at six feet eleven inches. This was as far back as 1932. ​

Would it be possible to expose the truth here in 2015? Sir Edward Atholl Oakeley wrote a book about Blackmore and his book Lorna Doone and it was a consuming passion for him.​

The re-birth of the evil Carver Doone, champion of Devon and Somerset was Oakeley’s idea. He was a man of great creativity. You have got to admire Oakeley. Were there any other wrestlers from Devon and Somerset? In his other book Blue Blood on the Mat, Oakeley names Carver Doone as Jack Baltus. Would that be enough of a clue for an amateur Time Detective to unravel the mystery of this man. Did he live long enough to see the Golden age of Wrestling and see Giant Haystacks ?

Well the research begins on 9th November 1903 in Hackney with the birth of John Ralph Baltus , son of John Baltus and Florence Jessie Warren. Dad, also born in Hackney worked on the Stock Exchange. Grandma Warren was no slouch either, running a cigarettes on commission business from home. John Baltus grew up at 96 Clarence Road , Clapton.​

With this I can squash any legend that Baltus and Oakeley were schoolboy friends as Oakeley would have been four school years ahead of him. Jack Baltus was really John III as his Grandad was also a John Baltus, a Zinc worker who had died young leaving grandma a young widow. Ironic that the first John Baltus was from Somerset. I cannot tell you about Jack Baltus’s schooling, he may well have gone to Public School as was alleged in some newspaper reports. However at the age of 20 Baltus went to Australia. He described himself as a Clerk. On the 8th July he sailed from London on the Largs Bay, bound for Freemantle in western Australia.

This was no Holiday, Jack Baltus went as a settler, and the remarkable thing was his arrival made the newspapers, and only really because his huge size had been noticed.

​Baltus had been offered a job rounding up sheep on horseback and wanted to toughen himself, but ended up accepting an offer from a farmer, Mr D Alves of Kojonup, to do a clearing job. He was interviewed by a least four papers and stated himself that he was well over six feet six inches and two more inches in his boots. Other reports said he was just shy of six seven in stocking feet.​

He was so noticeable on the ship he wore a flat cap to keep his height down; they named him the great white hope. Baltus was described as having brains, brawn and money. He did not wear tall hats because he had ruined several banging into doorways.​

How long Baltus spent in Australia, I am not sure, nor I have any evidence that he took part in anything other than his work. But I think we can reflect that the truth about his height had been exposed and Oakeley had added four inches when he launched his Carver Doone creation.

​The story of Australia ends there but that was not the end of his travels. The day before the 26th birthday of John Ralph Baltus he set sail from Liverpool to Quebec and Montreal. Again describing himself as a clerk and of 39 Threadneedle Street London. The ship was the Duchess of York (named after  Elizabeth Bowes Lyon).

Eight days later he arrived in Quebec. His job was to be in the Timber Trade. It’s a wonder Oakeley did not show him as a lumberjack from Canada. The firm he worked for was Sharples Ltd, founded in 1816 and the oldest company in Quebec in the square timber trade .​

This time I can put a time on the length of stay as on the 28th February 1932 the SS Antonia sailed into Liverpool from New York , but Baltus had got on the boat at Halifax in Nova Scotia. He was now classed as a Lumber Dealer. Home was to be 6 Avenue Parade, Coulsdon in Surrey.

I knew when I saw the name Jack Pettifer that his opponent was not some forgotten boxer. What an English boxing debut. This must have been a clash of giants as Pettifer was known as the British Carnera and he was on 15 and 0. Pettifer went on to have a 55 fight career , drew with Jack London , and beat Reggie Mean, and boxed three times at Madison Square Garden, though he fell just short and never quite hit the very top. Jack Pettifer though was billed at six feet eight. There is footage of him training on YouTube. Baltus had been a sparring partner for Dan McCorkindale.

Jack Murphy (Jack Baltus) was stopped on a technical K.O. in round three and I don’t think he boxed again. That was April 7th 1932. Quite a few of these boxers eventually made the wrestling ring  and I guess it may have been Oakeley who took Jack Baltus to another opportunity. I believe it may have been the 18th July 1932 when Jack Baltus became Carver Doone, working a bout with Oakeley at Nottingham, and getting disqualified after giving Sir Edward Atholl a good punching.

I think I have spotted a certain modus operandi in how Carver Doone was used. In each new town his huge proportions were good for press publicity. It was all new. No television or internet or weekly magazines. There was the shock, a complete unknown and perhaps the biggest man the spectators were ever likely to see in the 1930’s. Then after a few bouts, the realization that he struggled with the wrestling ability, not even equalling one of the better big men such as the Giant Anaconda, (Henry John Purvis),  who was reputedly six feet four inches or King Curtis. It took that extra wrestling ability to have the longevity and the fans coming back for more. But, for the short term great for opening nights. ​And it all helped the best wrestlers to look good.

The last time I can find Carver Doone wrestling was in April 1937, a short career of just five years.

​What brought it to an end?

​Well for one, In the spring of 1937 Beryl Jessie Crossland married John Ralph Baltus at Staines in Middlesex. Had Jack moved from Project Australia to Canada to Boxing and to Wrestling and then to his latest project,  Marriage? Maybe.

But I do have other sightings. At the time of the marriage Baltus was living at Oaks Farm Cottage in Epsom Surrey. In 1938 he was in the Royal Artillery and by October 1941 was transferring to The Royal Pioneer Corps. So that was the end of Wrestling for Carver Doone.

​I did pose the question, what would John Ralph Baltus have thought of Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks and for that matter Andre the Giant. Well I can partly answer that question, he must have seen them, but the newspapers stopped interviewing him, so he never had the chance to tell us. John Ralph Baltus aka Carver Doone died in 1982 in Worthing Sussex.

​A couple of years ago I made some notes off Press cuttings. These give the reader a flavour of the kind of reporting going on in the newspapers. Not a definitive career record, but a glimpse.

Carver Doone Sample Press Cuttings Notes  

​TWICE WARNED.
There was a sensational end to the all-in wrestling match between Atholl Oakcley and his giant south country opponent, Carver Doone, at the New Victoria Halls, Nottingham, last night. After Oakeley had registered a fall in the third of the six ten-minute rounds
Nottingham Evening Post  19/07/1932

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A WRESTLING CARNERA. HUGE PROPORTIONS OF CARVER DOONE. WINTER SEASON STARTS TO-NIGHT 
To-night’s wrestling the New Victoria Hall begins the Nottingham Sports Club’s winter season proper, and the matching Marcel Douvinet, the popular Frenchman, and Jack, (Doncaster) should produce some clean and interesting wrestling, as both men favour the more orthodox type. The reappearance of Carver Doone, as yet the tallest wrestler to have appeared in Nottingham, is attracting considerable attention. Standing 6ft. 1lin. he met Half-Nelson Keys
Nottingham Evening Post   05/09/1932

​OAKELEY WINS THIRD ROUND. DOONES METHODS  GIANT BOOED. 
Carver Doone, the Devon giant wrestler, who stands nearly 7ft., and weighs 21 stone, resorted to tactics against Athol Oakeley, at the New Victoria Hall, Nottingham, last night, which
Nottingham Evening Post   08/11/1932

​ALL IN WRESTLING. SENSATIONAL HEAVYWEIGHT PROGRAMME.
JACK PYE (Champion Northern England) VCARL FERDINAND (Germany). Also CARVER DOONE v. NORMAN THE BUTCHER AND SENSATIONAL SUPPORTING FIGHTS. PRICES 5/9. 3/6, 2/6, and 1/6 (inc. tax). 
Hull Daily Mail  08/11/1932

​DOONE’S FELLING METHODS 
The meeting of the 7ft. giant Carver Doone, champion of Devon and Somerset, and Norman the Butcher could hardly be described as a match.
Hull Daily Mail  10/11/1932

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Doone, who simply towered above heavyweight champion of England, Atholl Oakeley, will be seen,  since he  toured America and Canada. During the trip he took part in 19 fights and won all but two. On Wednesday be meets Carver Doone, the Devon and Somerset champion, who will be remembered for his contest with Norman the Butcher on the last bill this
Hull Daily Mail  19/11/1932

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7th. Open Commence 8.0. ALL-IN WRESTLING 
Carver Doone v. Barney O’Brien 
AND SUPPORTING PROGRAMME. USUAL PRICES. BOOK EARLY.  
Hull Daily Mail  05/12/1932
The. Devon giant, Carver Doone, again combatant, and his opponent will be Barney O’Brien. Much will depend upon O’Brien’s ability get Doone off his feet
Hull Daily Mail  07/12/1932

​ CARVER DOONE’S VICTORY
Carver Doone and Barney O’Brien (13st 71b) met in six rounder. No holds, simply rabbit punching to such an extent that the
Hull Daily Mail 08/12/1932

​Promoters are giving Hull enthusiasts the bout for which they have all been clamouring, namely a fight between Carver Doone. the famous Devon giant, and Half Nelson Keys, the 18 stone strong man who has had two wonderful fights with Billy Bartush
Hull Daily Mail 31/12/1932

​MANSFIELD WRESTLING CARVER DOONE GAINS VERDICT OVER VAN DUTZ. 
Opposing Carver Doone, of Devonshire, in an all-in wrestling match at Mansfield on Saturday night, Van Dutz, of Holland
Nottingham Evening Post   11/09/1933

​… from the scientific point of view, the battle of the giants, Carver Doone and Mighty* Palmar.’ whose total weight 45 stone, will be worth seeing, 
Western Daily Press   26/03/1934

​Douglas Clark (Huddersfleld) beat Carver Doone, the Cornish wrestler Halifax Drill Hall last night in ‘the  ten-round all-in wrestling match.
Hull Daily Mail
Yorkshire and the Humber, 12/01/1935

​MADELEY STREET BATHS, HULL MONDAY, JANUARY 6th  
The Match Hull has waited Three Years for: JACK PYE v. CARVER DOONE (The Doncaster Panther) (The Giant) has trained for this match specially and says he will get his own back 
Hull Daily Mail 04/01/1936

​VICTORY FOR CLARK
DOUGLAS CLARK, the ex- Huddersfield Rugby League player, defeated Carver Doone (Devon) two falls to one all-in wrestling match at the Hull Madeley-street Baths, last night. 
Hull Daily Mail 09/02/1937

​Historyo

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