This pleasant winter residence is now stretched from Paignton on one side to Marychurch on the other, with different climates in its several parts. Torquay is backed by a high ridge against the east, and consequently is sheltered from cutting winds from that quarter. S. Marychurch is on the top of the cliffs, and catches every wind. Paignton looks across the bay due east, and is therefore exposed to the most bracing of all winds. In Frying Pan Row, Torquay, one may be grilled the same day that at Paignton one may have one's nose and fingers turned blue.
A century ago Torquay was a little fishing village, numbering but a few poor cottages.
Torquay has benefited largely from the Palk family, but then the Palks also have benefited largely by Torquay.
A cloud of dust has been stirred up to disguise the humble, but respectable, origin of the family; and even Foster in his Peerage (1882), who is always accurate when he had facts placed before him, commences with "Sir Robert Palk, descended from Henry Palk, of Ambrook, Devon (Henry VII., 1493-4)." But Ambrook, which is in Staverton, never did belong to the Palks; it was the property first of the Shapcotes, and then of the Nayles. Sir Bernard Burke, in addition to the Ambrook myth, states that Walter, seventh in descent, married Miss Abraham, and had Robert, Walter (who was member for Ashburton), and Grace. The late Sir Bernard Burke was not remarkable for accuracy, and here he has floundered into a succession of blunders. The descent from Henry Palk, of Ambrook, is apocryphal; and Walter Palk never was member for Ashburton, or for anywhere else. Another false assertion made has been that the family are descended from a Rev. Thomas Palk, of Staverton, a "celebrated" Nonconformist divine, who died in 1693. Wills proved in the Court of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter disprove this.
The real facts are these.
Walter Palk, of Ashburton, married Grace Ryder, and by her means came in for a petty farm called Lower Headborough, close to Ashburton. He died in 1707, when his personal estate was valued at £160 10s. 5½d. His son Walter married Frances, daughter of Robert Abraham, a farmer in Woodland, and his pack-horses carried serge from Ashburton over Haldon to Exeter. This is probably the origin of the story commonly told that the first Palk was a carrier between Exeter and Ashburton. He had two sons: Walter, whose son, the Rev. Jonathan Palk, vicar of Ilsington, described his father as a "little farmer with a large family." The second son, Robert, born in 1717, was sent as a sizar to Oxford, by the assistance of his uncle Abraham. He was ordained deacon, and became a poor curate in Cornwall. On Christmastide he walked to Ashburton to see his father, and as he was returning on his way home, he stood on Dart Bridge, looking down on the river, when a gentleman riding by recognised him, drew up, and said, "Is that you, Palk?" He had been a fellow-student at Oxford. Palk had a sad story to tell of privation and vexation. The other suggested to him to seek his fortune under John Company in India, and volunteered an introduction. He went out, acting as chaplain to the Stirling Castle, and during the time he was in India, attracted the attention of General Lawrence, who in 1752 obtained for him an appointment as paymaster to the army, of which he had then assumed the command. But already by clever speculation Mr. Palk had done well; the new position enabled him to vastly enlarge his profits.
He next embarked in trade, and this also proved remunerative. He came back to England for the first time in 1759. Subsequently a difficulty arose in India. The Company were debating it at the old East India House in Leadenhall Street. What capable man could they find to do the difficult work before them? At last one of them exclaimed, "Gentlemen, you forget that we have Mr. Palk at home." "The very man!" He was sent out as Governor of Madras in 1763. In 1775 General Lawrence died, and left £80,000 to his old protégé.
The acquisition of the property about Torquay, at the time when it was a place of no consideration, was a shrewd stroke of business. Mr. Palk was created a baronet, and elected to represent Devon in Parliament. Subsequently, when the Rev. John Horne Tooke, a Jacobin, as it was the fashion to call Radicals of that day, was returned to Parliament, the House settled that it would not allow of clerical members being admitted, and this would have excluded Sir Robert Palk as well as Horne Tooke, but that Palk was only in deacon's orders.
Sir Robert did much for Torquay. Sir Lawrence continued to promote the material welfare of the place in every way available.
He constructed the outer harbour and new pier, which were completed in 1870, at an outlay of £70,000. Further attractions were afforded to visitors by the provision of recreation grounds and public walks. He also gave sites for new churches, and the modern town of Torquay has risen into a place full of beauty and attraction.