wemburywaves

On This Day in Wembury — 19 April 1873

Four labourers — William Pole, William Rolings, William Coleman, and William Stephens — were indicted for stealing a piece of oak timber, valued at £6, from wreckage washed ashore at Wembury. The timber was the property of Vincent Pollexfen Calmady, Lord of the Manor of Langdon. Mr Adams, Calmady’s steward, had already removed other wreckage above the high water mark and marked the timber with Calmady’s initials. Despite this, the men took the timber away, claiming they would deliver it to Customs for salvage. Instead, they sold it at Devonport for four shillings.

The timber later changed hands again for £6 before being traced by police to a Devonport yard. When arrested, the men admitted taking the timber but argued they thought it was fair wreck. The court ruled otherwise: even wreck timber, once marked and secured by the Lord of the Manor, was protected as private property. They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to three days’ imprisonment with hard labour.

This case highlights the tension in Victorian wreck law. Villagers often saw wreckage on the shore as a traditional perquisite, while the law, reinforced by the office of the Receiver of Wrecks, treated it as belonging either to the Crown or the landholder once properly claimed. It also shows how sentences had become lighter by the 1870s. Earlier in the century wreck plundering could bring transportation or long prison terms; here the men received only three days.

Source Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 16 May 1873