ChatGPT said:
On This Day in Wembury – 27 December 1852
During one of the most violent winter storms to strike the English Channel in decades, the ship Ocean Queen, owned by Captain Sheppard of Lime Street Square, was driven ashore at Wembury.
When daylight came the following morning, only fragments of her wreck were found along the shore. It was feared, and later accepted, that the whole crew, including the master named Hore and two passengers, had perished.
The same hurricane caused devastation across the Channel, wrecking emigrant ships at Dungeness and Lyme Regis and claiming upwards of a hundred lives along the south and east coasts. The loss of the Ocean Queen places Wembury among the many coastal communities touched by the disaster.
Source: Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 31 Dec 1852.
On This Day in Wembury
27 December 1933 — Suicide Attempt Leads to Wembury Break-In
On this day George Lawrence Marley, a Leeds-born man lodging at the Salvation Army Hostel in Plymouth, broke into Ridgeway, West Wembury, a bungalow owned by Charles Young of Cobourg Street, Plymouth. The property had been unoccupied since September.
Marley smashed two windows in the early hours, entering with the stated intention of ending his life. In court, police testified that he had told them: “Yes; I smashed the window and stole the fruit.” He remained in the empty house overnight, using it to dry his clothes, and later took a tin of fruit valued at ninepence for food.
When Young and his wife returned to check the bungalow they discovered the damage and missing item. Marley was arrested and later committed to the next Assizes.
The incident highlights how the economic and social struggles of the 1930s could drive desperate actions. Even a minor theft of food, in the context of unemployment and mental distress, could escalate into a serious criminal charge, while also exposing the vulnerability of unoccupied holiday bungalows along the Wembury coast.
Source: Western Morning News, 19 January 1934 (reporting offence of 27 December 1933).