This month our Silken Strands is devoted to giving thanks, which is a timely reminder of the well-respected custom the other side of the Atlantic. We extend grateful thanks to:
Caroline Kline of Vancouver, Canada, who has donated the WWI Death Plaque of James Edward Cobbold who died on 7th October 1918. James was born in 1893, the son of G W Cobbold of 18 Albion Street, Ipswich. His service number was 8388 and he became a drummer with the 2nd Battalion, The Suffolk Regiment. He is buried in the Berlin South-Western Cemetery (VI. E. 7.)
Caroline’s brother, James Alderton, who now lives in Australia, bought the plaque from a shop near Ipswich during his school holidays in 1968 when he was 11 years old. It remained in a box of his curios until Caroline came across it last year and approached the Trust, initially to establish James’s identity. Having discovered the purpose of the Trust she and her brother gladly decided to make the donation.
Ivry, Lady Freyberg who, when attending an auction, successfully bid for an earthenware wine and spirit flagon, complete with basket-work protection, from Cobbold & Son of Ipswich, which she has donated. The business name tells us that it is pre-1924 and although the cork is still in place a rather delicious (but, as yet unidentified,) aroma is discernable when the flagon is laid on its side.
Robin Myring, who, when determining the future for books in his library, discovered a copy of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass with illustrations by John Tenniel, published by Macmillan in 1904 bearing the handwritten ownership mark of Phoebe Verena Fonnereau 1908. Phoebe (1869-1944) is #2759 in our family tree and Robin Myring kindly felt that the Trust would be a good final resting place for her book.
David Cobbold (#642) who has donated a laptop computer onto which will be loaded a power-point presentation for the use of the Keeper, starting in 2014.
To all, our thanks!