Category: cobbwebs-news-and-views

March 2010 saw the start of our story about Nicky Cobbold (1997) #1079.  He was 12 at the time and had Down Syndrome and Leukaemia. Having survived open heart surgery aged 2, he had already endured more trauma and ill health than any child should have to face.

Despite having been diagnosed with Grave’s disease, our report on Nicky in October 2016 found him helping out at Camp Curumbene in Corop, Australia which provided out-of-school activities for 130 children.  In addition to canoeing, dancing, and helping judge the ‘Camp Curumbene’s Got Talent’ show Nicky loved just chatting with the children.  What he probably didn’t realise was that he was showing them that children with a disability are no different from themselves.

However much we may talk to our children about others with a disability, there is nothing like giving them the opportunity to find out for themselves.  For many, Nicky was the first disabled child they had ever met, and in Nicky they found the warmest, kindest, friendliest and most affectionate person imaginable.  They would discover that he does not have a mean bone in his body and that he bubbles with enthusiasm for life every day.

Now, would you believe we find Nicky featuring in “Making Waves” the journal of a body which provides sailing opportunities for people with a disability.

Celebrating World Down Syndrome Day with our Star Volunteer, Nicky

Today, 21^st March we are celebrating World Down Syndrome Day – a day to recognize and appreciate the incredible contributions of people with Down Syndrome all around the world. And what better way to celebrate than by giving a huge shoutout to one of our absolute legends, Nicky!  If you have been around RGYC [Royal Geelong Yacht Club] on a Wednesday morning, you have probably met Nicky.  He is a superstar volunteer, always bringing good vibes and showing our participants that having a disability doesn’t define you.  But Making Waves is just one of the many places he makes a difference – Nicky also helps out at The Yot (RGYS’s café), works at a local real estate agency, takes part in Back to Back Theatre, plays footy and still finds time to hit the dance floor on Wednesday nights.

Nicky, you are an inspiration to us all, and we are so lucky to have you as part of the team.  Keep being awesome!

Anthony Cobbold

This is a tale of little consequence but it illustrates the small pleasures that derive from a careful look at the papers left by our parents.

Three years ago, I chanced to meet a lady whose married name was Moorhouse.  Going through my father’s papers I found a wedding invitation from 1930.  I would have cast it aside but I noticed the groom was a Moorhouse.  Looking more carefully, I saw that the bride was Diana, a niece of the 4^th Earl of Leicester. Knowing that Lady Evelyn Cobbold (1867-1963) #308 on the web family tree was a granddaughter of the second Earl I wondered why my young, impoverished, newly married parents had been invited to this undeniably posh wedding at St. Mark’s, North Audley Street.

Thinking about it I guessed that Diana had had a crush on my mother Mary (1908-2000) #408 when they were at school together and she just wanted her there on her big day.  A little later, and I found the Order of Service for the ceremony bearing the initials DMC for Diana Meriel Coke (1907-1996) #15293 and SCTM for Samuel Cecil Trevor Moorhouse (1908-1975) #15305.  One of the hymns, sung kneeling, was ‘O Perfect Love, all human thought transcending…’  The reception was at 30 Gloucester Place, which was a fine Georgian property in its day but which is currently being converted into flats.

Later, looking through my mother’s papers I found a carefully preserved, hand-written letter, addressed to my mother from the Golf Hotel, St. Jean de Luz.  My dear Mary, I’ve found your letter in my writing case.  Thank you so very very much for the lovely vase you gave me.  I can’t tell you how pleased I am with it & it will be most useful.  It was so nice of you.  I am so sorry I didn’t answer your letter but it was such a hectic rush these last few days.  We arrived here yesterday & it is quite the most divine place.  Lovely & hot and not too fasionable [sic].  We spend the whole day bathing & paddling about the sea in a canoe.  Then golf in the evening.  You asked me how old Trevor is, he is 22 & was in the 10^th Hussars, which he has now left as they are not allowed to marry until they are 26 or 27 in that regiment & he is now going to work in the Sorbo Sponge Rubber Company which is supposed to be a very good thing.  Poor darling – he is at present in bed with what I imagine is a touch of the sun as he will insist on lying in the sun all day without a hat.  Must close.  Thanking you again so very very much for the lovely present. I am so delighted with it.  Yours ever, Diana.

The marriage did not survive; they divorced in 1938.

Either she made a mistake, or he re-joined the 10^th Hussars as the records show that 2^nd Lt. S.C.T. Moorhouse of the 10^th Hussars was a member of the British Expeditionary Force when he was awarded a Military Cross, gazetted 27^th September 1940.  The citation says Second Lieutenant Moorhouse’s cruiser was hit and set on fire, though not before it had accounted for a particularly deadly 37-mm gun, and most unluckily Captain Wyndham Malet and Second Lieutenant J Rowell were killed in their tank. 

After that lucky escape Trevor survived the war and lived until 1975, Diana died in 1996 and my mother outlived them both.  I wish I had asked her about that wedding.

 

Anthony Cobbold

Family members and friends know that The Cobbold Family History Trust and its archive are now safely cared for at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire.  Over the 500 years that Knebworth has been the home of the Lytton family it has established itself as a world leader in preservation.  The Trust is truly grateful to the Knebworth trustees.

Victor, 2^nd Earl of Lytton (1876-1947) #2298 on the web family tree, married Pamela Chichele-Plowden (1874-1971) #2299 and they had two boys and two girls.  Antony (1903-1933) #2300, the elder son died in a flying accident in 1933 and Edward (1910-1942) (known in the family as John) #2301, the younger was killed in action at El Alamein in 1942.

When the 2^nd Earl died in 1947 his elder daughter, Hermione (1905-2004) #491 inherited Knebworth.  I remember her well.  She was the nicest, kindest, most gentle person imaginable.  The connection with the Cobbold family was established when she married Cameron Cobbold (1904-1987) #490 in 1930 who became Governor of The Bank of England from 1949 to 1961, and was Lord Chamberlain from 1963 until 1971.  He was ennobled as Baron Cobbold of Knebworth in 1960.

I propose two or three Cobbwebs devoted to the history of the house and its principal occupants and I make no secret of the fact that these will be abridged from an article in Country Life January 31^st 1985 by Sibylla Jane Flower.

‘Today the dominating character at Knebworth is that of Edward Bulwer Lytton, the Victorian romantic novelist, but this article traces the earlier history of the house, in particular the reduction and remodelling carried out by his mother, Mrs Bulwer Lytton, in 1814-1816.

‘A large pile of bricks, with a fair quadrangle in the middle of it ”was Sir Henry Chauncy’s description of Knebworth House in the last years of the 17^th century, “seated upon a dry hill in a fair large park, stocked with the best deer in the county, excellent timber, and well wooded, and from thence you may behold a most lovely prospect to the East.”

‘The park is still studded with fine trees, and deer have been reintroduced in the last 10 years, but the house has been altered out of all recognition, and the view which delighted Chauncey has Stevenage in the distance, with the land between intersected by the A1 motorway.

‘The building to which Chauncey refers dated from the 15^th and 16^th centuries, but was drastically reduced in size in the early 19^th century when three sides of the courtyard were demolished, and the remaining wing fashioned into a manageable country house for Mrs Bulwer Lytton. [(1770-1843) #9163]

‘Her son, Edward Bulwer Lytton, [(1803-1873) #3678] disliked his mother’s mild Regency Gothic.  After her death in 1843 he transformed the house into a more consciously Gothic edifice with the aid of extensive stucco decoration and the proceeds of a string of successful novels such as The Last Days of Pompeii, Rienzi and The Last of the Barons.

‘Bulwer Lytton’s taste still dominates the house, despite the efforts of his grandson, the 2^nd Earl of Lytton, and his wife to dilute the pervasive atmosphere of Victorian Gothic.  The efforts of the present owner, David Lytton Cobbold [(1937-2022) #625], who is a great-great-grandson of Bulwer Lytton and his wife have been directed towards the rehabilitation of Bulwer Lytton as the presiding genius at Knebworth.’

 

Anthony Cobbold

 

Images courtesy of Knebworth House (www.knebworthhouse.com).

From time to time in life one hears of truly exceptional people.  Christopher Blount #626 on the web family tree was just such a person.  He was born the son of an Air Vice-Marshal, a Royal Flying Corps veteran who died in a flying accident in 1940, and was educated at Elstree, Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge.  A year after her coronation he was selected as an equerry to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and accompanied her on her 1956 tour of Nigeria and her state visit to Portugal a year later.  In 1957 he married Susan Cobbold (1933–2021) daughter of 1^st Baron Cobbold (1904-1981) #490.

During an eventful flying career he flew Mosquitos, twin-engine Brigand ground- attack aircraft for 8 Squadron in Aden and became ADC to Air Officer Commanding British Forces in Aden.  After a spell at Biggin Hill where he flew Vampires, he was appointed to command 45 Squadron in action in support of Operation Firedog, the campaign against communist terrorists in the Malayan jungle.  Initially they flew single-seat Venom aircraft but later were equipped with the twin-engine Canberra. In cloud, one such craft collided with the tail of Christopher’s plane making it uncontrollable.  He ejected from his upside-down aircraft at only 5000 feet and his parachute was open for barely 30 seconds, but he survived.  On another occasion his Canberra’s undercarriage would not lower and he was forced to make a smooth “pancake” landing.

In 1965 the family suffered further tragedy when Christopher’s elder brother, Air Commodore John Blount, DFC, a former Spitfire photographic reconnaissance pilot and PoW, then serving as Captain of the Queen’s flight, was killed when a Whirlwind helicopter crashed because of a rotor blade failure.  In retirement he worked for Hambros Bank and later, Lazard.  Christopher died last December aged 99. His funeral service was held in the village church of St. Mary Magdalene, Barkway which he supported vigorously.  The congregation heard a recording, made last year by Christopher himself, of a poem ‘High Flight’ by John Gillespie Magee Jr.

There was not a dry eye in the house.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence.  Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

 

My eager craft through footless halls of air….

 

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew –

And while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

 

Anthony Cobbold

As I write, this very day (19^th January 2025), St. Mary le Tower, the civic church of Ipswich is being redesignated IPSWICH MINSTER.  Described as a rare and historic honour, the Reverend Tom Mumford said that the new designation recognises the church in Tower Street has been at the heart of Ipswich for more than 1000 years.

In 1200 the churchyard of St. Mary le Tower was the site of the granting of a charter by which Ipswich came into being.  The churchyard is also the site of a poignant memorial to the martyred Bishop of Melanesia, John Coleridge (Coley) Patteson (1827-1871) #2465 on the web family tree. (For a fuller account click here or see the book Cobbold & Kin, page 43).

Grade II listed with a spire reaching 60 metres into the sky, St. Mary le Tower, one of 12 medieval churches surviving in Ipswich to this day has always been at the centre of Ipswich civic life.  It has also been significant in the life of the Cobbold family.  The Reverend Thomas Cobbold (1742-1831) #51 was vicar for 53 years and was succeeded by Reverend Francis Cobbold (1803-1844) #121 who served another 7 years.  Thomas, his wife, Anne, his eldest son, also Thomas who died at Trinity College, Cambridge, aged 20 and another son, Robert Chevallier who died in infancy are all commemorated on a plaque high on the north wall.

Other Cobbold memorials in St. Mary le Tower include:

John Chevallier Cobbold (1797-1882) #114

John Patteson Cobbold (1831-1875) #186

Lucy Cobbold (1828-1916) #182

Sarah Cobbold (1779-1841) #75

Mary Ann Fernley Cobbold (1776-1857) #73

Nathanael Fromanteel Cobbold (1839-1886) #195

Thomas Clement Cobbold (1833-1883) #191

Perhaps, most important of all is the plaque commemorating Elizabeth Cobbold née Knipe (1765-1824) #56, mother of Richard Cobbold (1797-1877) #106.  Extraordinarily the St. Mary le Tower website claims that Richard Cobbold is buried there.  The Trust is very familiar with his grave in Wortham where he rests in peace with his wife.  Curiously, he and his wife died within 5 days of each other but in different years!

The Trust is truly grateful for a portrait of Richard Cobbold, donated recently by Juliet Felton #13674.

Anthony Cobbold

I have observed, contrary to expectations, no reduction in the number of Christmas cards dropping on my door mat.  I looked at them several times and enjoyed them all but four particularly caught my attention:

Most famous: Holywells Park, Ipswich, 1748-50, Thomas Gainsborough, a panoramic view looking north-east showing the series of man-made pools constructed by Thomas Cobbold from natural springs to provide pure water for his brewery.  Sold in aid of Ipswich Borough Council.

Most humorous: Four Candles, from the BBC comedy show, The Two Ronnies first shown 18^th September 1976 in which a shopkeeper (Ronnie Corbett) becomes increasingly frustrated by a customer (Ronnie Barker) because he misunderstands what is being requested.  Sold in aid of RSPB.

Most unusual: Sledging on Hampstead Heath, 1925, native American Sioux chiefs take a break from the Christmas extravaganza at Olympia.  Sold in aid of Research to Prevent Blindness, being undertaken by St. Thomas’ & Guy’s Hospitals.

Most poignant: No Mans Land Football; late on Christmas Eve 1914 men of the British Expeditionary Force heard German troops in trenches opposite singing carols.  Greetings were exchanged between trenches.  The following day British and German soldiers met in No Mans Land, exchanged gifts, took photographs and played impromptu football.  Sold in aid of Combat Stress, UK’s leading charity for veterans’ mental health.

The best greeting:  Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we….diet!

Anthony Cobbold

On a mild, cloudy, but fortunately dry, day last week, 30^th November 2024, a small assembly outside the stable block at Holywells witnessed the unveiling of an Ipswich Society blue plaque to Elizabeth Cobbold, second wife of ‘Big’ John Cobbold (1745-1835) #56 on the web family tree.

We have understood for a long time that Elizabeth (née Knipe) was ahead of her time in a variety of interests, one of them being Geology.  Her findings have been of interest to Geo Suffolk for some time and are recorded by Caroline and Robert Markham in Suffolk Biodiversity Information Service’s journal volume 56 (2020) from which we have abridged the following:

Elizabeth Cobbold of Ipswich collected and identified fossils from Suffolk Crag deposits (for the most part from what is now known as Red Crag) in the early nineteenth century.  Her specimens were first published by James Sowerby of London in his Mineral Conchology from 1813.  This is more than 200 years ago, 8 years before the first paper on Mary Anning’s specimens was published by the Geological Society of London and 46 years before Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ was published – she was a contemporary of pioneering palaeontologists Gideon Mantel and Georges Cuvier.  Such early scientific endeavour deserves to be recorded and celebrated.

She was introduced to James Edward Smith of Norwich, a founder and first president of the Linnaean Society (in London in 1788) by Nicholas Gwyn (1710-1798) an Ipswich botanist in August 1793.  James Smith arranged for ‘Mrs. Cobbold’ (as she would be known in scientific circles) to receive the first part of ‘Flora Anglica.’  This was a new publication by James Smith and the natural history artist and publisher James Sowerby of Lambeth, London.  Elizabeth Cobbold contributed records to the ‘Flora’ including the ‘weeds’ summer snowflake and meadow-saffron at Little Stonham.  In 1810 (17^th April) Elizabeth Cobbold’s paper on ‘On the Fasciola Hepatica’ (concerning liver fluke) was read (but not by her as women were not allowed) to the Linnaean Society.

About half a century later her grandson, Dr Thomas Spencer Cobbold (1828-1886) #174, helminthologist and parasitologist became a member and frequent contributor to the Linnaean Society.  He knew all about his grandmother’s early pioneering endeavours; perhaps some of her scientific genes survived?

Anthony Cobbold

The Trust was saddened to read recently of the death of Sir Henry Neville Lindley Keswick (1938 – 2024) #991 on the web family tree, and we send our warmest condolences to his family.

Sir Henry’s wife Tessa (1942-2022) #999 was the daughter of Brigadier Simon Christopher Joseph Fraser DSO MC TD, 15^th Baron Lovat (1911-1995) #2342 and Rosamond (Rosie) Delves Broughton (1917-2012).

The Brigadier was the 25^th Chief of the Clan Fraser and was a decorated Marine Commander on Sword Beach for the WWII D-Day landings.  His heroic story and that of his clan piper Bill Millin is told in his biography – HERE.  But what we have not written about previously is Rosie’s relationship to the hedonistic Happy Valley set in Kenya in the 1940s.

Rosie’s father was Sir Henry John (Jock) Delves Broughton DL (1883-1942) #15202 the 11^th Baronet who achieved some unwanted fame by standing trial for the murder of the 22^nd Earl of Erroll.  The Happy Valley set was an exclusive, tightly knit, and promiscuous circle in colonial Kenya behaving as an antidote to wartime Britain.  Jock, born at Doddington Hall in Cheshire was a young Army officer when he married Vera Edyth Griffith-Boscawen (1894-1968) #15203 in 1913.  He is said to have sold off thousands of acres of family lands to pay off gambling debts which may have contributed to his divorce.  In 1940 he married a second time, Diana Caldwell and together they moved to Kenya.

Lord Erroll was found dead, shot in the head, in his car on the outskirts of Nairobi in January 1941.  Because Diana had been very publicly carrying on an affair with Lord Erroll, Jock became a suspect but was acquitted for lack of evidence.  The case hung on the fact that Jock’s pistol had 6 grooves but Erroll had been killed by a pistol with only 5 grooves.  The set seems to have thought him guilty as he was ostracised and it may have been right as he ended his life by committing suicide in the Adelphi hotel in Liverpool.

Unsurprisingly, there have been a plethora of ‘suspects’ the most popular being Diana Caldwell but none have come to trial.  An unsolved murder is irresistible to authors and film makers and this one was no exception. White Mischief by James Fox was published in 1982 and was followed by a film of the same name in 1987.  Stories of a long-gone world!

Anthony Cobbold

We are pleased to publish reviews and comments following the publication of Granman, written by the founder of The Cobbold Family History Trust, Anthony Cobbold.

 

A TRULY BEAUTIFUL MEMOIR

Historians of social history will forever be indebted to Anthony Cobbold. He has dedicated his life in retirement to chart the lives and times of his notable East Anglian family with such care and precision. His Cobbold Family History Trust Family Tree is a work of great historical value. This memoir is a wonderful read. Honest, moving and so kind. Anthony has enjoyed a very successful business career, much of it down to his inimitable charm and thought for others. One of the finest memoirs I have read in a very long while. Highly, highly recommended.

Richard, www.amazon.co.uk

 

Just as the website and vast family tree dealing with the Cobbold family and their kin seems like a patchwork of stories, so the life of Anthony Cobbold. So many places of residence, so many occupations and experiences here and abroad and a number of romantic liaisons… It’s a good read from a self-effacing man who holds Ipswich dear to him.

RG, The Ipswich Society newsletter (October 2024)

 

If you’ve not had the pleasure to meet our Trust’s founder, Anthony Cobbold, I believe you will find his memoir Granman a truly enjoyable read. If you do know Anthony, you’ll be enchanted – as I was.

Granman tells the story of Anthony’s life leading up to his formation of The Cobbold Family History Trust. It’s a typically self-effacing and beautifully written account of growing up in the war, of the trials of school and university, the ups and downs of a successful career in sales, working in Africa, a passion for cars, the joy and heartache of love, of marriage, children and divorce and, above all, the importance of family.

Henry Lytton Cobbold, Trustee, The Cobbold Family History Trust

 

Granman is available from The Cobbold Family History Trust’s website at: Granman – A Life of Luck and Love – The Cobbold Family History Trust

Felix Thornley Cobbold (1841-1909) #201 on the web family tree is widely appreciated in Ipswich and indeed throughout Suffolk for his philanthropy.  His gifts of Christchurch Mansion in 1895, the former Ipswich Racecourse and some 852 acres of good agricultural land to the East Suffolk County Council, in trust, are but a few examples.

What is not so widely known is that he was the original Cobbold family historian.  In Victorian times when pursuit of family history became fashionable it was deemed desirable to establish a link to royalty whether genuine or fictitious.  We have exposed one such imaginary entry but this was not at all the route taken by Felix.  With an academic background his thorough research was aided by the Reverend Joseph Russell Olorenshaw who produced the Notes on the Church in the Parish of Rattlesden.  On publication in 1900 a copy of this was sent by Felix to Christian Chevallier Cobbold (1868-1910) #341 being passed down to his grandson Richard (Dick) Temple Chevallier (1939) #622.

In 2009 Dick and his wife Jeannie née Potter, ardent and much appreciated supporters of The Cobbold Family History Trust, who live in Ottawa donated the book to the Trust on the occasion of Felix’s centenary party at Christchurch Mansion. (For an account of their trip, A Communion of Cobbolds see Cobbweb, Nov. 2009 – click here).  With the book about Rattlesden was a handwritten letter to Christian from Felix including a pedigree for 9 generations of Cobbolds “…where our ancestors were living throughout the Stuart times and well into Hanovarian…to show you the descent.  It is absolutely proved by the Court Rolls of the Manor of Rattlesden; and the wills of the various progenitors.”  Felix’s work, checked and unaltered, forms the basis of the family tree we see and love today.

A little aside on the pedigree says that Rev. Thomas Cobbold (1742-1831) #51 sold the Rattlesden property to Cocksedge in 1812.  The last paragraph of Felix’s letter sounds a mildly triumphal note: “I purchased last October year about 50 acres of the land which my great grandfather’s eldest brother sold away in 1812.”

The original letter and Felix’s copy of the limited (to 200) edition of the book are now preserved in perpetuity in the Trust archive.  Thank you, Dick and Jeannie.

Anthony Cobbold