On This Day in Wembury — 30 September 1797
The Oxford Journal reported the sudden and tragic death of the Rev. Mr. Love, Vicar of Wembury. After a long illness, he was sitting up in bed at his Plymouth residence and asked his wife for a penknife to pare his nails. Seized suddenly by his recurring complaint—a choking rise in the throat—he forced his hands upward under his jaw in an attempt to relieve the spasm. In doing so, he accidentally drove part of the knife’s blade into his neck, severing the carotid artery.
He died instantly, in full view of his wife and children. The report described it as an “unhappy accident,” bringing to a close both his ministry at Wembury and a painful final illness.
The story is stark, even shocking by the standards of parish news. It reminds us how fragile life was before modern medicine, when an illness could leave someone so vulnerable that a small, everyday act turned fatal. In Wembury’s wider history, it also marks how a sudden vacancy in the living of St Werburgh’s might ripple through parish life, one more example of how the community’s stability often hinged on the fortunes of its clergy.