On This Day in Wembury — 7 November 1838
Catastrophe in Plymouth Sound: Wembury men among the dead
A violent south-westerly gale struck Plymouth Sound, producing sudden squalls and a confused sea where the ebb tide met the swell near the Cobler buoy. Three pinnaces left HMS Chatham at the Breakwater with about twenty labourers each, bound for the Oreston quarries. Only two arrived. The second pinnace capsized near the Cobler; twenty men were lost.
Among the dead were many from Wembury: Robert Cobbledick (widow and seven children), William Cornish (widow), Thomas Nutt (widow and four children), William Luxam (widow and six children), Joseph Blake (widow and five children), plus the unmarried William Davis and David Deeting. In total the tragedy left 14 widows and 51 orphans.
Although the boat was sound and her steersman, William Sampson of Plymouth, was experienced, the sudden sea proved overwhelming. From shore, three men were seen clinging to the Cobler buoy but were washed off before help came — unlike other buoys in the Sound, the Cobler lacked the lifelines known as preservers.
Public grief was immediate. Relief subscriptions were begun at Plymouth Guildhall and in local churches to aid the bereaved families.
The 1838 pinnace disaster is one of the darkest maritime episodes linked to Wembury, binding the parish into Plymouth’s wider story of loss at sea. It stands alongside the 1806 Hibernia launch calamity at Wembury, the 1828 wreck of the Lord Mulgrave, and later tragedies such as the Fritonia in 1845. Together they remind us how often the coast here has been both a livelihood and a grave.
The detail of families left destitute — Cobbledicks, Cornishes, Nutts, Luxams, Blakes — transforms this from a shipping report into a human disaster that scarred a small community for a generation. One can almost picture Wembury Churchyard filled with mourners from households now headed only by widows, the Sound behind them still heaving from the same storm that took their men. The sea, so close and ever-present, has shaped the fate of Wembury not just in its scenic calm, but in these violent reckonings.
On This Day in Wembury — 7 November 1923
When Yealmpton came to Wembury twice… and still could not play
On 7 November 1923, the Western Morning News reported an unusual complaint involving Wembury Football Club and their neighbours at Yealmpton.
At a meeting of the Devon Association League in Plymouth, chaired by Mr E. G. Stent, it was stated that Yealmpton had travelled to Wembury twice that season to play a league match, only for the appointed referee to fail to appear on both occasions.
On the second visit, the problem might still have been solved. Wembury invited Yealmpton to play under an unofficial referee instead, but the Yealmpton captain refused.
The league chairman said that, where an appointed referee failed to appear, the clubs should make every effort to play the match using a suitable substitute. Postponing fixtures, he warned, could create serious difficulties later in the season as unplayed games accumulated.
The discussion revealed that this was not simply a Wembury problem. Clubs were complaining more generally that some referees were failing to fulfil appointments, and the league decided that the Devon Referees’ Society should be contacted about it.
It is a small glimpse of village football almost exactly a century ago, when arranging a match was rather less straightforward than turning up at a floodlit ground with officials already waiting.
Players might have travelled several miles, probably by bicycle, motor vehicle or whatever transport could be arranged, only to discover that the one person essential to getting the match started had failed to arrive.
What the report does show is that Wembury already had an organised football side competing within the Devon league structure by the early 1920s. Association football had become deeply embedded in village life across Devon by then, with local clubs competing in organised leagues rather than simply arranging occasional friendly matches.
And there is something wonderfully familiar about the whole affair.
Two villages agree a fixture. The visitors travel to the ground. The referee does not turn up.
So they arrange it again.
The visitors travel back.
And the referee does not turn up again.
A hundred years later, anyone who has been involved in grassroots football may feel that some things have changed rather less than we imagine.
Source: Western Morning News, Wednesday 7 November 1923.
Entries are summaries and interpretations of historical newspaper reports.