On this day in Wembury — 17 April 1905
The Western Morning News reported the grim discovery of a body washed ashore on Wembury Beach early that Saturday morning. A local man named Wallace had spotted the remains and alerted the coastguard, who took charge of the scene. The body, believed to have been in the sea for some time, was in a terrible condition, both hands and the head missing, the sea having done its slow, destructive work. The clothing was carefully listed by the paper: a black coat and trousers, a blue jersey and lace-up boots.
Such cases were sadly familiar along the Devon coast in the early twentieth century, when storms, fishing accidents and wrecks still claimed lives each season. Without identification or witnesses, many of these inquests ended with the same verdict — “found drowned” — and a burial in a local churchyard under an unknown name. The coroner, Mr R. Rodd, was expected to hold his inquest that day, and the report gives a glimpse of the uneasy relationship coastal communities had with the sea, a provider one day and a taker the next.
(Western Morning News, 17 April 1905)