Laycock, C. H.

Obituary

Published in DA Transactions, 1943

CHARLES HEY LAYCOCK, B.A., was born in 1879, and was the only son of William Laycock, J.P., of Wolborough Hill, Newton Abbot. He was educated at Newton College, and Merton College, Oxford.

He joined the Devonshire Association in 1905, and became one of the best-known members, partly as a student and expositor of the county dialect and folk-lore, and partly for his social qualities. He contributed papers to the Transactions on folk-music, wasps, and local wit and humour, and edited the Reports on Verbal Provincialisms from 1929 and that on Folklore from 1938, till his death. He joined the Council in 1909.

Mr. Laycock was widely known for his skill in music, and at his house at Moretonhampstead made a fine collection of keyboard stringed instruments. It was a delight to hear him play the harpsichord, spinet and clavichord, and to sing the old tunes he knew so well. In this house was a collection of articles used in farmhouses of the old times, which he had made during many years with great discrimination and knowledge; he had given many such things to the Torquay Natural History Society, which exhibits them in the museum.

He was one of the few people of these times who have seen a will-o-the-wisp; his experience is recounted in Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries, He was a botanist, a philatelist, a raconteur of a high order, a gardener, a musician, and a most delightful companion. He was unmarried, and died suddenly, regretted by all his many friends, on 28th March 1943. The Association has been considerably benefited under the terms of his will.

Papers published in DA’s Transactions