On This Day in Wembury — 4 February 1869
Mr E. B. Lockyer of Wembury in Court Over an Advertising Account
On 4 February 1869, the John o’ Groat Journal in Scotland carried a short but curious legal notice connecting quiet Wembury with distant Inverness. The Inverness Advertiser had sued Mr E. B. Lockyer of Wembury for the sum of £10 14 s 11 d, said to be owed for advertising services.
The case was heard in the Edinburgh Sheriff Court, where Mr Forsyth appeared for the pursuer and Mr Mair acted for Lockyer. Employment was admitted, but Lockyer’s advocate insisted the account had already been settled by a payment “made in the Station Hotel at Inverness.” The dispute was sufficiently tangled that the Sheriff ordered a commission to Aberdeen to gather further evidence.
The man named was almost certainly Edmund Beatty Lockyer (1813–1891) of Wembury House, a member of the prominent Lockyer family who built the Georgian mansion overlooking Wembury Bay in the early 1800s. The Lockyers were merchants and ship-riggers with business ties in Plymouth, and later branches spread northward — one dying in Edinburgh, another linked to trade through the western ports. It seems plausible that Edmund Beatty’s business interests, perhaps in shipping or property, extended to Scotland, explaining why his affairs appeared before a Scottish court.
This small report reveals the surprising reach of Wembury’s landed families in the Victorian age — when a gentleman living above the Devon coast could find himself entangled in a legal dispute 600 miles away in Edinburgh.
Source: John o’ Groat Journal (Wick), Thursday 4 February 1869 — “Mr Lockyer’s Advertising Account.”
Context: Case between Inverness Advertiser and E. B. Lockyer of Wembury; likely Edmund Beatty Lockyer of Wembury House, whose family also gave their name to Lockyer Street and other Plymouth landmarks.