And so, to the second member of My Fab Five who appears early in The Last Rainbow. It appears that Hermann Eckstein (1847-1893) #6117 uncharacteristically died intestate, a situation guaranteed to exert strain on the most ordered of family relationships and the Ecksteins were no exception. Whether his wife Minnie Dinah Pitt (1865-1936) #318, a descendant of two eponymous prime ministers, inherited her fair share or not matters little because either way she was left a wealthy widow and, as the book puts it the target of many suitors. The winner of her affections and no doubt the beneficiary of much of her inheritance was an extraordinary character called Ralph Patteson Cobbold (1869-1965) #316, the second of my five. They married in 1905. Even to this day, the Cobbolds of Suffolk remain a powerful force.
Again, my mother with her unerring ability to cut to the chase would always describe Minnie’s new husband as ‘naughty old Ralph’. I can quite see why. He was born in Ipswich in 1869 and was the second son of the Ipswich MP John Patteson Cobbold JP MP (1831-1875) #186. Educated at Eton, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps on the 17th October 1888, and promoted to lieutenant on 1st October 1890.
Later he joined the Indian Army and served with the 60th Rifles. His main claim to fame was the extraordinary journey he made into innermost Asia during 1897-1898. Ostensibly a hunting trip, he was in fact under the direct orders of the British Government and was in effect on a vital spying mission. His report on Russian plans to occupy Chitral was an important episode in the ‘Great Game’ between the Russian and British empires.
I feel very fortunate in possessing a copy of the book he wrote about his adventures called ‘Innermost Asia.’ [There is a copy in the Trust also] In the front piece is a striking picture of Ralph dressed from head to foot in fur. Clutching his trusty .256 Mannlicher re stares out intently at the camera. I am struck how like his son (Ralph Hamilton Cobbold (1906-1987) #454 – my number 5) he is. With a small neat moustache and dark penetrating eyes, he looks every inch a buccaneer……which in a way he was.
NB Numbers shown thus #1111 indicate the bearer’s position on the web family tree.
