This post card was bought cheaply by the trust recently, probably because the vendor did not know where the memorial was. We knew instantly that it was in the Church at Earls Barton, between Northampton and Wellingborough, where the Rev Robert Russell Cobbold (#232) was the Vicar from 1883 to 1903. Two of his three sons were killed in WWI. Robert Henry Wanklyn Cobbold (#375) who was born in 1892 and had been Head Boy at Marlborough and gone on to St John’s College, Cambridge joined The Rifle Brigade and was killed at Flanders in 1915. His brother, Edgar Francis Wanklyn Cobbold (#378), born 1895 also went to Marlborough, was commissioned into the Cheshire Regiment and transferred into the Royal Flying Corps in its very early days. Almost immediately after his arrival in France he was reported missing near Beauchamps in January 1916.
Their sister, Frederica Primrose Cobbold (#383) born 1901 and always known as Aunt Prim, was particularly close to her brother Edgar and his loss when she was just 15 may have contributed to her decision not to marry. She gave service way beyond the normal in WWII but that will be the subject of another Cobbweb later.
The third Cobbold on the memorial poses something of a dilemma and any news to help us solve it will be very welcome. The only H Cobbold shown on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Roll of Honour was born at Woolpit, Suffolk in about 1869, served with the Suffolk Regiment and The Rifle Brigade and was in the Royal Defence Corps at the time of his death on 7th October 1919. He is buried in the Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey and his wife Ada was living at 7 Wycliffe Rd, Battersea, London at that time. If this is the Harry Cobbold recorded on the memorial, why is he featured at Earls Barton? Could he have been Robert’s batman? They were both in The Rifle Brigade but it’s a very long shot!
Anthony Cobbold
© 2012 The Cobbold Family History Trust
