Memorable Members' Biographies


For ease of access our memorable family members are divided into two groups:

COBBOLDS – For all those having the SURNAME COBBOLD whether by birth or marriage.

KINSFOLK – For all those enjoying another great SURNAME. 

You will find them listed in birth date order – earliest date first.

COBBOLDS 

KINSFOLK

John COBBOLD
1746 – 1835

3rd generation Brewer. Banker and Merchant.

The family brewery was founded in Harwich in 1723 by John's grandfather Thomas Cobbold (1680-1752).

Thomas soon discovered that the water in Harwich was too brackish so in 1727 he started shipping clear spring water down the Orwell by barge from the 'Holy Wells'. The business prospered to the extent that in 1746 he decided to move his family and the brewery to a site on the Cliff above the Orwell at Holy Wells. There has been a Cliff Brewery in Ipswich ever since.

The founder died shortly afterwards and his son another Thomas Cobbold (1708-1767) took over. The business still flourished but 'young' Thomas died only 15 years after his father and John, the 3rd generation found himself at the helm when only 22 years old. He had been educated at Greenwich and he turned out to be a natural businessman. His granddaughter, Emily Caroline remembers him having fair hair and blue eyes. Contemporary portraits suggest he was a well-built man. He had inherited property in Harwich and Dovercourt and the prosperity of the business provided him with an enviable lifestyle.

He married Elizabeth Wilkinson (1753-1790) in 1773 and she bore him 15 children in 17 years before, unsurprisingly dying. Another Elizabeth, this time Clarke nee Knipe (1764-1824) was his second wife who gave him another 7 children in 8 years. With his large philoprogenitive capacity satisfied he turned his attention to banking. Bacon,Cobbold,Rodwell,Dunningham,Cobbold & Co. received a substantial injection of cash from the brewery business which allowed it to survive the 1825 banking crisis and build a profitable banking business which was to trade for another 80 years.

His big family raised, his new house built, his duties as a Magistrate completed and his businesses prosperous he died in 1835 at the age of 90. He was certainly entitled to feel that his life was a job well done.

Anthony Cobbold 2006

Recently we have taken to calling him 'Big John' (which is a pretty accurate description) to distinguish him from his 6 John Cobbold descendants.

Elizabeth KNIPE
1765 – 1824

Champion of the Arts and Charity, a poet and artist in cut paper

Born in Watling Street, London to Robert Knipe a wealthy merchant and Alice Waller, young Elizabeth published her first work at the age of 18. This was followed 4 years later by six narrative poems dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds who she had recently met.

She married William Clarke who was more than twice her age in 1790 but he was dead within 6 months. The following year she married John Cobbold, 25 years her senior and already the father of 15 children, and bore him 6 boys and a girl in the next 8 years of whom 4 boys lived to maturity. With a second wealthy husband, this one a brewer, she vigorously pursued her interest in arts and charity. Holywells quickly became a centre for literature, theatre, music, drawing and painting ; she loved it and joined in with alacrity. Her students were tutored by Gainsborough, Reynolds and Constable.

Mrs. Cobbold continued to publish poems and give encouragement for 20 years. Her "Ode to the Victory of Waterloo" was dedicated to the Prince Regent and the proceeds went to charity. She founded a number of Ipswich charities of which one was to provide clothing for the infant poor. But she partied too. Each year she hosted an extravagant Valentine party at which 80 delicate and elaborately cut Valentines were given to unmarried ladies and gentlemen with only one thought in mind. Her fame spread and Dickens portrayed her as Mrs. Leo Hunter in his Pickwick Papers.

Nor was science forgotten; she exchanged letters with the President of the Linnean Society and even had a fossil shell from the Suffolk coast Nucula Cobboldiae named after her. Admired by all and respected by all she was busy all her life. Taken ill in July she appeared to be recovering when she even died quickly in October 1824.

Note: The Cobbold FHT has a number of Mrs. Cobbold's works including a copy of "Poems" (1825) which was presented to George F Dixon (and carries his initials) by his grandmother Mrs. Henry (Emily) Cobbold on 1st. January 1886 and which contains original vignettes by Mrs. John (Harriet) Cobbold.

Anthony Cobbold 2006

John Chevallier COBBOLD JP, DL, MP
1797 – 1882

5th generation Brewer. Banker and Railway Pioneer.

The blend of Cobbold genes from his father and Chevallier from his mother produced a man of gigantic energy for Victorian Ipswich. It seems there was almost nothing happening in Ipswich, maybe even Suffolk in which he was not involved. The Chevalliers, originally from Jersey, lived at Aspall, can trace their line back to Edward I and later gave their name to a new strain of fine malting Barley.
John Chevallier Cobbold was born in Ipswich on 24th August 1797 and baptised at St. Clements the same week.

Educated at Bury St. Edmunds Grammar School (admitted 1807) he grew up with all the benefits and privileges of a family engaged in profitable business. He was to inherit much but he also gave much back in civic service. He was a Dock Commissioner (1837), Mayor of Ipswich (1841), Treasurer of the Ipswich and E. Suffolk Hospital, MP for Ipswich from 1847 to 1868 being elected five times consecutively. Contemporary comment records that there was never any doubt who spoke for Ipswich. He was a JP and a Deputy Lieutenant for the county of Suffolk.

On the commercial front where no doubt an element of enlightened self-interest prevailed he was Chairman of the Eastern Union Railway throughout the life of the company and a director of the Ipswich and Bury St. Edmunds Railway. His company had it's own wharf and shipbuilding yard. Between 1820 and 1865 more than 20 ships of up to 350 tons were acquired for regular trading with India and China. It was John Chevallier Cobbold who kick-started the development of Felixstowe. He bought land there including Felixstowe Cottage, which stayed in the family for many years, and built the first hotel.

In marrying Lucy Patteson at Wortham in 1827 he forged a link with a highly respected Norfolk family. Lucy's brother was Sir John Patteson a judge of the Queens Bench and she was aunt to John Coleridge Patteson the martyred Bishop of Melanesia.

They had 13 children, 3 of which followed their father to the House of Commons and most of which achieved considerable success. John Chevallier Cobbold's final recognition came with his appointment as High Steward of Ipswich in 1875, a position he held until his death at Holywells on 6th October 1882 at the age of 85.
In St Bartholemew's Church, Ipswich there is a marble font inscribed "To the Glory of God and in memory of John Chevallier and Lucy Cobbold, this font is given by their Grandchildren"

Note: The Cobbold FHT has copies of 2 books and 2 CDs which detail John Chevallier Cobbold's significant influence on railway development in East Anglia.

Anthony Cobbold 2006

 

Rev. Richard COBBOLD
1797 – 1877

Rector of Wortham, Novelist and Illustrator.

Probably the best known member of the family Richard was born fifth child of his mother, Elizabeth Knipe and twentieth child of his father, John.
Early education was under Charles Blomfield followed by seven years at King Edward VI Grammar School. He arrived at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1814, won a scholarship and graduated BA in 1820, the year in which he was ordained. His Tutor at Caius was Dr.Benedict Chapman who he claims was very influential in his life and went on to become Master of Caius 1839-1852.

Richard was curate to his uncle the Rev.Thomas Cobbold at Woolpit and St.Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich. In 1822 he married Mary Anne Waller and in 1824 his father bought them the living at Wortham. He built a new rectory and moved there in 1828, albeit very reluctantly because it meant giving up the social and family life he enjoyed so much in Ipswich.

The first two children Richard Wilkie Waller and Edward Augustus were both born before their parents left Ipswich and both were ordained. The third child Thomas Spencer was born at Wortham the year they arrived. 'Valentine Verses' was published in 1827 to a critical reception but in 'The History of Margaret Catchpole' he had a best seller. This success was never repeated but not for want of trying. He was devoted to his parishioners and kept a detailed and illustrated account of their lives which came to some prominence in 1977 with Ronald Fletcher's 'Biography of a Victorian Village' which was televised the next year.

Richard was Rural Dean of Hartismere 1844-69 and throughout his life he was a prolific writer and much enjoyed the pursuits of an English country gentleman. However his life was not without anxiety for in 1862 he decided to sell the living at Wortham to Kings College, Cambridge to help provide for two of his childrens' marriages. He and his wife both suffered ill health for most of 1876. She died on 26th December aged 75 but Richard was not well enough to be told. He died just a few days later on 5th January 1877. They lie in the churchyard at Wortham.

Note: The Cobbold FHT has copies of many of Richard Cobbold's works, some carrying his signature and also a copy of the 1978 television programme.

Anthony Cobbold 2006

On the commercial front where no doubt an element of enlightened self-interest prevailed he was Chairman of the Eastern Union Railway throughout the life of the company and a director of the Ipswich and Bury St. Edmunds Railway. His company had it's own wharf and shipbuilding yard. Between 1820 and 1865 more than 20 ships of up to 350 tons were acquired for regular trading with India and China. It was John Chevallier Cobbold who kick-started the development of Felixstowe. He bought land there including Felixstowe Cottage, which stayed in the family for many years, and built the first hotel.

In marrying Lucy Patteson at Wortham in 1827 he forged a link with a highly respected Norfolk family. Lucy's brother was Sir John Patteson a judge of the Queens Bench and she was aunt to John Coleridge Patteson the martyred Bishop of Melanesia.

They had 13 children, 3 of which followed their father to the House of Commons and most of which achieved considerable success. John Chevallier Cobbold's final recognition came with his appointment as High Steward of Ipswich in 1875, a position he held until his death at Holywells on 6th October 1882 at the age of 85.
In St Bartholemew's Church, Ipswich there is a marble font inscribed "To the Glory of God and in memory of John Chevallier and Lucy Cobbold, this font is given by their Grandchildren"

Note: The Cobbold FHT has copies of 2 books and 2 CDs which detail John Chevallier Cobbold's significant influence on railway development in East Anglia.

Anthony Cobbold 2006

 

 

Dr Thomas Spencer COBBOLD MD FRS FLS
1828 – 1886

Parasitologist and Helminthologist

Thomas Spencer was born in Ipswich in May 1828, 3rd. son of Rev. Richard Cobbold (of Margaret Catchpole fame) and Mary Anne Waller, allegedly descended from Edmond Waller the poet.

He was schooled at Charterhouse and apprenticed at 16 to John Green Crosse, a well known surgeon in Norwich who helped develop Thomas Spencer's bent towards Natural History and particularly his interest in comparative anatomy as a result of which he became a skilled dissector. In 1851 he graduated MD gold medalist from Edinburgh University which was the start of a career in research rather than practice, but of the greatest diversity.

Later, he was vice-president of the University Club; vice-president of the Birmingham Natural History & Microscopial Society; corresponding member of the Acadamy of Science at Philadelphia and the Royal Agricultural Acadamy in Turin. He became Professor of Botany and Helminthology at the Royal Vetinery College and Emeritus Swiney Professor of Geology at the British Museum and was for some time examiner in comparative anatomy, zoology and botany at St.Mary's Hospital and lecturer in the same three disciplines at the Middlesex.

He never lost his loyalty to his alma mater becoming the curator of the Anatomical Museum at Edinburgh and senior president and vice-president of the Royal Medical Society and the Physiological Society respectively. As well as being a clear if dogmatic lecturer and a much enjoyed after dinner singer he was the author of numerous works on Helminthology and in an unexpected change of direction he practiced in Wimpole St. and later in Harley St. for ten years.

He died at home at the relatively early age of 57 from heart desease in part occasioned by over work.

Note: The Cobbold FHT has copies of many of his works, including his contribution to The Museum of Natural History (1860)

Anthony Cobbold 2006

 

Felix Thornley COBBOLD JP MP
1841 – 1909


Lawyer, Brewer, Banker and Philanthropist
Born in Ipswich, youngest son of John Chevallier (1797-1882) and his wife Lucy Patteson (1800-1879) Felix Thornley was as bright as a button. He was a King’s Scholar at Eton, matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, took a BA and MA at King’s College, Cambridge where he was sometime second bursar and a Senior Fellow, a position he retained for life. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn but never practised…..

Dr Edgar Sterling COBBOLD D.Sc FGS
1851 – 1936

Expert Amateur Shropshire Geologist

Edgar’s mother’s diary records his birth at 25 minutes to 10 on the evening of 7th.April 1851 in St. Albans. He was the eldest son of Rowland Townshend Cobbold a surgeon who was at great pains to interest his children in the love and knowledge of birds, beasts and flowers and probably of stones and fossils.

Though Geology was to become his all consuming interest, his professional education was that of an engineer at Owen’s College…

Francis Edward COBBOLD JP
1853 – 1935

Pioneer Pastoralist in Australia

“He is small and thin but you will find him active” said a reluctant Arthur Thomas Cobbold to the Captain of the Ann Duthie when he apprenticed his 14 year old son in 1867. This passage on a wool clipper to Australia set the direction, and his physique the achievements of F E Cobbold’s life. As a Fijian trader he escaped the cannibals and the Levuka hurricane to arrive in Australia in 1873…..

Sir Harry Smith PARKES GCMG KCB
1828 – 1885

Sometime Her Majesty's Minister to China and Japan.

The youngest of the three children of Harry Parkes, founder of the firm of Parkes, Otway & Co, ironmasters, he was orphaned when he was only 5 years old. He was educated at boarding school in Balsall Heath and at King Edward's Grammar School (1838). His two older sisters and his uncle were living in Macao where he joined them in 1841. By the following year he was learning Chinese and working for the Rev Gutzlaff. By 1843 he had passed his Chinese exam and in 1844 was appointed Consular Interpreter at Amoy.

In 1851 he was appointed interpreter at Canton, travelling there in February 1852. While there, he acted as Consul in the absence of Sir John Bowring, and in August 1853 he was placed temporarily in charge of the Canton vice-consulate. In 1854 he was appointed Consul at Amoy from where he became joint secretary of a mission to conclude the first European treaty with Siam. He returned to England with the treaty for ratification and was received by Queen Victoria on 9th July 1855.

While in England, Parkes met and married Fanny Plumer, granddaughter of Sir Thomas Plumer, the first Vice Chancellor of England. "She was a beautiful girl" wrote a friend. However, his position in Canton brought him into conflict with Ye Mingchen which led to the Second Opium War of 1856 to 1860.

In the course of the Beijing Campaign which really started in June 1859 Parkes became involved in a number of hostile negotiations, during one of which, he and Henry Loch were taken prisoner, even though they were protected by a flag of truce, placed in chains in a common prison and tortured. Fortunately their release was negotiated two days before the arrival of their execution warrant!

During a visit home Parkes was appointed KCB in May 1862 at the unusually young age of 34. He returned to China and it was during a trip to the Yangtze ports in May 1865 that he heard of his appointment as "Her Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary and Consul-General in Japan" where he was to succeed Alcock.

Parkes held the post for 18 years during which he was an ardent supporter of the Liberal Party of Japan. The party's opponents soon had him a marked man and on three separate occasions attempted to assassinate him. He ran his mission in a way which greatly encouraged junior members to study Japan and Ernest Satow and William George Aston benefitted accordingly. However, Parkes was not an easy man to work with and he was generally not popular with Japanese officials. Whilst in Japan, Lady Parkes became known, in 1867, as the first non-Japanese woman to ascend Mount Fuji. Anticipating a return home she went back to England to make preparations, but became ill and died in November 1879.

By 1883 Parkes's health was beginning to fail. He was transferred to Peking where he died of a malarial infection from which he was simply too exhausted to defend himself. His body was brought home and laid to rest on 26th of June 1885 beside those of his wife and daughter, Nellie, in a vault at St Lawrence's Church, Whitchurch.

Anthony Cobbold
January 2011

Prior to his burial a memorial service had been held at St. Mary Abbot's, Kensington. Two years later a modest ceremony took place in the crypt at St. Paul's Cathedral. Among the little throng were Sir Harry's old chief of Amoy days, Sir Rutherford Alcock; his lifelong friend and colleague Sir Thomas Wade and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Keppel. Along with Secretaries of the Chinese and Japanese Legations they had come to do honour to a great Englishman whose marble bust by Thomas Brock RA was to be unveiled by Sir Rutherford Alcock.

The inscription read: Sir Harry Smith Parkes GCMG KCB, HBM's En. Ex.and Min. plenipotentiary in Japan and China. He died at Peking on 22nd March 1885 aged 57 while in the active discharge of his duties thus closing a distinguished career in the Far East of 43 years. This monument is erected by friends and brother officers in memory of his life long service, his unfailing courage, devotion to duty and singleness of purpose.

Anthony Cobbold
January 2021

F/Marshal Horatio Herbert KITCHENER KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, 1st Earl Kitchener 1850 – 1916

Military Commander and Statesman

BIOGRAPHY abridged from John Pollock's Prologue to 'Kitchener' (1998)

THE GREAT WAR, as contemporaries called it, had been raging for a year and ten months when King George V, on a morning of early June 1916, left London by special train for one of his numerous inspections of troops. Two brigades, totalling 1,300 soldiers and sailors, were drawn up on the landing ground of the Royal Naval Air Station at Felixstowe in Suffolk. Whilst the King was receiving senior officers before mounting his horse, his equerry was called urgently to the telephone. He returned with a grave, shocked face to report to the King, privately, that Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War and his staff had been drowned.

They had embarked from Scapa Flow for a short official visit to Russia. HMS Hampshire had been sunk off Orkney in a violent storm 'either by a mine or a torpedo' at about 8 pm the previous evening. The King rode round the troops, took the salute and returned to London in shock and grief. At Buckingham Palace he found a note from Queen Mary, who had left to inspect a hospital at Woolwich: '12.45 June 6. My darling, I am miserable at this dreadful news about dear Ld K, so what must you feel. Such a loss to you & the nation, it is indeed terrible.' That night Queen Mary wrote in her diary: 'Went to G who was dreadfully upset. Stayed some time with him & we saw Sir George Arthur who had been working for Ld K for the last 22 months. Spent a very sad evening.' And the King's comment in his diary highlights their utter sense of loss: 'It is indeed a heavy blow to me & a great loss to the Nation & the Allies. I had every confidence in him & he was a great personal friend.

The news shook the nation to the core. In camps where 'Kitchener's Armies' were training, in the trenches of France and Flanders, especially among those who had answered their country's need in response to his pointing finger in the famous poster, in factories and fields, villages and city offices, men and women felt a personal sense of loss. Not since the death of Queen Victoria had Britain known such national grief.

Some of his Cabinet colleagues were not so sure. They had wanted Kitchener out of the way, though not tragically, either because they had concluded that his faults now outweighed his merits, or because his single minded dedication to winning the war hindered their political ambitions: these wept 'crocodile tears', as one friend put it.

But none felt the loss more deeply than those who had served on his personal staff. Sir William Birdwood ('Birdie'), commanding the Anzac troops on the Western Front, as previously in Gallipoli, wrote at once to Clive Wigram: 'I am simply overwhelmed & feel for the moment that I am left alone in the world. Birdie recalled Kitchener's visit to Gallipoli 'when he showed his pleasure at seeing me again, so very much more than was his usual custom...I was writing to him only last week telling what we thought of the yapping curs in the House of Commons round the old lion.'

Far away in the Sudan, Sir Reginald Wingate, Kitchener's successor as governor-general, who had been with him throughout the reconquest and when setting up a regime of peace and justice which lasted sixty years, wrote from Khartoum: 'We are all dreadfully distressed about Lord Kitchener's loss. Personally I feel it greatly for he was one of my oldest & best friends and we had served more or less together for close on 30 years...The people of the Sudan, who were devoted to him, have sent hundreds of telegrams of sympathy & condolence.'

And in Egypt, where Kitchener had been 'de facto' ruler until the outbreak of war, Lord Edward Cecil described to his wife in England the great memorial service in Cairo where the Christian and Muslim clergy sat together on the dais. 'The effect in the country is extraordinary - everyone really depressed for everyone has lost a true friend.'

Kitchener left an indelible mark on his generation and on British history. Although his posthumous reputation has varied from contempt to high praise, he was by any standard one of the towering personalities of his age. His height and strong build, with his famous moustache, thick brown hair and impressive face, gave Kitchener a somewhat alarming appearance. His eyes were blue, with a slight cast in the left eye which, with a scar from a war wound, enhanced the effect of sterness until he smiled. He was painfully shy and loathed personal publicity and was therefore often misunderstood. His great friend Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby, said that 'to many he was an enigma, and some have likened him to a sphinx...Only those who knew him well really understood him.'

Abridged by Anthony Cobbold
July 2018

Charles Cobbold (CC) FARR
1851 – 1914


Founder of Haileybury, Ontario, Canada, 1904

"C C", as he was known throughout his life, was the third son of Rev. John Farr and Emily Caroline Cobbold.
The Farr family had lived at North Cove Hall for eleven generations and Emily's father was Robert Knipe Cobbold a brewer at Eye. Born 29th May 1851 in Suffolk, CC was a restless fairhaired child with a strong predeliction for risky exploration who ran, jumped and climbed to adolescence via Haileybury School

He arrived in Ontario in 1871 enduring a tough few years before joining the Hudson Bay Company in 1874 to become a depot manager. By 1880 he was married and had produced a daughter, his only child. His first land purchase was made at Humphrey's Depot in 1885 and a further twelve hundred acres were added (at 50 cents an acre) thereafter. When the Post Office came in 1890 Haileybury, Ontario was on the map. The mining boom arrived with the railway in 1903 and Haileybury was incorporated and officially named after CC's school. The new town also adopted the school's motto "Sursum Corda" "Be of Good Courage". Little did the Founder know how important courage would turn out to be.

Ontario law did not permit the sale of liquor within 5 miles of working mines. Conveniently Haileybury was half a mile over the limit. That's where the mining companies wanted their offices and that's where the hotels and stores were built. Expansion was underway but sadly, the business part of the town was substantially destroyed by fire in 1906; but by the following year the population was over 4000, the property assessment topped $2 million and four storey buildings were rising from the ashes to accommodate the officials, the lawyers and the bankers.

CC was influential during these developments through public office and his newspaper, The Haileyburian which left it's readers in no doubt as to which projects were favoured. For recreation CC enjoyed his motorboat the Jinnie M, often accompanied by his faithful four legged companion O'Dawg. By 1912 Haileybury was the judicial seat and CC had built his 'stately' home on West Road overlooking the lake. Two years later after a short illness he died there on November 25th. 1914. It was said at the time "In a way, part of the town died with him"

Note: Paul Alexander Cobbold (1862-1922) CC's cousin went out to Haileybury and became the Divisional Court Clerk but died with his wife and his wife's uncle in the great fire of 1922 which destroyed 90% of the town.

Anthony Cobbold 2006

Dr James William Cecil TURNER LLD MC
1886 – 1968

A Distinguished Writer on Roman and Criminal Law

Dr James William Cecil Turner. a distinguished writer on Roman and criminal law, former Fellow and Bursar of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and university lecturer, died on Friday at Cambridge at the age of 82.

Turner was borm on October 2nd 1886 at Farnborough, Kent and educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Queens' College, Cambridge.He took a First in Part I of the Classical Tripos in 1909, and then turned over to law, taking Part II of the law Tripos in 1910.

He took a First in Part I of the Classical Tripos in 1909, and then turned over to law, taking Part II of the law Tripos in 1910. Turner was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple and during ths First World War served with the Royal Field Artillery in France as a Second Lietenant and was awarded the Military Cross.

After the war Turner returned to Cambridge and taught law, with a special interest in Roman Law. He was elected to a fellowship at Trinity Hall in 1926, and two years later was appointed to a university lectureship in law. In 1930 he was appointed bursar of his college and later steward as well. He retired in 1952; in 1963 he was awarded a LL.D by Cambridge University for his contributions to the literature of the criminal law.

Turner's contribution to law studies at Cambridge, and to legal writing generally was a great one; Roman law and criminal law were his special interests. In 1953 he published Introduction to the Study of Roman Private Law. His work in the field of criminal law and criminal science, was probably one of the greatest contributions anyone has made to that subject since Kenny published his Outlines of Criminal Law in 1902. Turner edited and very substantially re-wrote the 16th, 17th, 18th and the current 19th editions of Kenny. In the same area, he edited the 10th, 11th and the current 12th editions of Russell on Crime, and in 1953, jointly with A. LI. Armitage, he brought out an entirely new volume of Cases on Criminal Law.

His great interest in this branch of the law and in its practical application found expression in a great deal of social work outside the university. He was an early and devoted sponsor of the Deartment of Criminal Science at Cambridge, of which he was for many years the Secretary. His untiring efforts on behalf of that department, particularly as joint editor with Professor Radzinowicz of the Cambridge Studies in Criminal Science, played a very large part in its rapid development into the present Institute of Criminology.

Turner was a magnificent teacher in the great Cambridge tradition of Henry Bond, Frank Carr, David Oliver and Percy Winfield. he had a wonderfully sympathetic understanding of the vagaries of the youthful mind and to those who knew him it was no surprise that he loved every moment of his lengthy tenure as University Proctor. Many will remember his untiring efforts to help any person or any cause in which he believed and his sharp and subtle wit, always just the right amount of tartness and always totally devoid of malice.

His interests in life were manifold and various. In his time he seems to have kept as a pet almost every animal from a horse to a hummimg-bird and in later life he derived great pleasure from his garden. For a considerable period he was treasurer of the Cambridge University Cricket Club and the former Department of Estate Management in the University owed much to his guidance as its chairman over many years. Cecil Turner married Beatrice Maud Stooke in 1924 and they had six children.

Obituary
The Times
2nd December 1968

Footnote. His son, David wrote the following piece in July 2014 for a research group which was examining the effect of WW1 on their village.

The First World War had for both my parents, in common with so many others at that time, a profound influence on their lives. It also led indirectly to my coming to live in this village. My father, born in 1886, was the youngest by eight years in a family of five children. I don't think he would dispute that he was spoiled by his family and circumstances. His father had made his way through the Victorian era as a highly successful opera singer. Starting from very modest origins in Sutton in Ashfield in Nottinghamshire he had literally sung his way around the world by the time he was twenty four years old. He was very comfortably off when my father was born and my father benefitted from this, going to King Edwards School Birmingham, a foundation of similar vintage and origin to KEGS in Chelmsford, and then on to Cambridge. He had started to read for the Bar, playing cricket at County level for Worcestershire in the hot summers immediately before WW1, an era described by Siegfried Sassoon when Britain's power and position in the world seemed secure.

One of his sisters was living in Germany at that time and he spent lengthy spells with her acquiring a good knowledge of German. Called up at the end of 1915 he was training as a gunnery officer in 1916 at Totnes Barracks when he met my mother who was then seventeen years old and training as a nurse. Her father was a postman in Dawlish in Devon but she had seized the opportunity of free medical training. As society was then, the likelihood of their ever meeting would have been remote, had it not been for the war. Not long after they had met my father was posted to France with the Royal Field Artillery. My parents were not to marry until 1924. That this was so was a direct result of the war.

First my father, because of his knowledge of German, remained in the army until 1920 stationed in Cologne as part of the occupying forces. When he returned he had to complete his preparation for his Bar Finals. I understand that his experiences during the war turned him towards following an academic career and he returned to Cambridge where he remained for the rest of his life. On his return he bought the house, Hundred Acres, up by St. Elizabeth's Centre, as a place for his sister, who had been interned in Germany for part of the war, to live in with her two children.

My mother having completed her training had moved to London working as a nurse. She had seen so many women lose their husbands during the war that she was determined to acquire a full professional training so that should that happen to her, she would be able to support any children that she might have. With this aim she studied in night school and became a fully qualified Physiotherapist. Only then did she agree to get married.

Many survivors of that war never discussed their experiences and my father was one of those. I knew that he had been awarded the Military Cross but had never collected it. Only later did I discover the citation from the Public Record Office which states that he, having withdrawn his battery under heavy fire, returned under continuing fire and rescued his wounded battery sergeant whom they had been forced to abandon. There were at home a number of books of peoples's memoirs and when I showed interest in them he pointed me towards "Her Privates We" a bowdlerised version published in 1930 of a book subsequently published as "The Middle Parts of Fortune" written by Frederick Manning. That book, along with "All Quiet on the Western Front", was for him the best description of what he had lived through. In 1964 at the very end of his life, the BBC in the Fiftieth anniversary year presented a series of programmes showing footage and photographs of the war which he watched with interest. But even then he could not be drawn on the subject. At home a couple of brass shell cases from his battery's six pounder guns and a bayonet in a battered scabbard were the only momentos that he kept. The bayonet in a shell case stood on a window sill by our front door for the rest of his life. The other shell case stood on the hearth by the fire.

David Turner
and
Anthony Cobbold.

 

Hilaria Agnes EDGCUMBE
1908 – 2009

Centenarian last Hilaria of Cotehele

Lady Hilaria Gibbs owed her distinctive Christian name, a continuingly popular choice in her family, to her ancestor, Hilaria de Cotehele, a ward of the Black Prince whose marriage in 1353 brought the medieval manor house Cotehele in southeast Cornwall into the possession of the Edgcumbe family, with whom it remained for almost 600 years.

Lady Hilaria, known as "Laire" to her family and friends, was one of four children of the 6th Earl of Moune Edgcumbe, Kenelm Edgcumbe, who inherited the title from his second cousin in 1944. It was he who arranged in 1947 that Cotehele should become the first historic house to pass to The National Trust in lieu of death duties.
Yet at the end of her long life Lady Hilaria, who knew the property all her life and lived there in 1944 and 1945, had established a strong claim to be a second Hilaria de Cotehele. Even as a centenarian she was a frequent visitor to the house and its estate, regaling visitors with her memories of the house. It was at Cotehele that she celebrated her 100th birthday in 2008 with a lunch party attended by 180 relatives.

She also provided Cotehele and The National Trust with the recipe for its traditional stoneground wholemeal bread; although she was brought up in a family accustomed to liveried servants, she was an excellent breadmaker, and her recipe uses dark brown sugar and molasses to impart a rich, soft crumb.
Cotehele is one of the least altered medieval houses in the country, because from the 16th century the family seat of the Edgcumbes moved to Mount Edgcumbe overlooking Plymouth Sound. Cotehele was retained as the family's country estate, with a tower from which servants could exchange signals with Mount Edgcumbe regarding the family's movements and requirements.

Mount Edgcumbe was wrecked by German incendiary bombs in the air attacks on Plymouth in 1941, but Lady Hilaria's father eventually rebuilt it from 1958 and reoccupied the house in 1961. The mansion was sold to Plymouth City Council and Cornwall County Council in 1971 but was celebrated at Lady Hilaria's 100th birthday party at Cotehele in the shape of a specially commissioned cake, and in the following summer itself became the scene of an even larger celebration, a picnic for 250 family and friends.

Hilaria Agnes Edgcumbe was born in London in 1908. Her father was en electrical engineer with an interest in powering early cars and aircraft: one of her earliest memories was seeing Louis Bleriot take off, powered by one of her father's engines. During the First World War her father's company, Everett Edgcumbe, was involved in providing the seachlights protecting Plymouth, so her childhood was spent at Widey Court, Plymouth, a house in which Charles I held court in 1644 during the siege of Plymouth, and neighbouring Widey Grange.
Her education was the business of governesses until, in 1923, she was sent to finishing school at Vaucresson, west of Paris, with Madamoiselle Roblin, who taught her fluent French, and for whom Lady Hilaria retained a warm appreciation in later life.

Back in England, the young Hilaria decided to teach dancing. In 1933 she married Denis Gibbs, an officer in the Queen's Royal Regiment, and she accompanied him on prewar postings to Italy, Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight and Ireland.
Her brother Piers, who it had been assumed was to inherit the Mount Edgcumbe title, died at Dunkirk. Denis Gibbs was captured at the battle of El Alamein and for two years his wife, with their three young daughters, did not know whether he was still alive. But after the Italian surrender in 1943 Gibbs was able to flee his Italian prison and walk the length of the Apennines through German-occupied Italy, arriving home in time to join in the D-Day landings in 1944.

After victory Lieutenant-Colonel Gibbs was sent as commanding officer on the Isle of Man, where he and Lady Hilaria welcomed an official visit by George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The Queen is said to have asked Lady Hilaria: "How many children do you have?" Lady Hilaria told her and, in an aberrent moment, inquired politely:"And how many have you got?"
Lady Hilaria was, though, a model army wife while her husband was commanding officer of Officer Cadet Training Units at Mons House, Aldershot, and Eton Hall in Cheshire, and of the battalion stationed in Singapore. She also gained a reputation as a fierce tutor in Scottish reels. "Who's that bossy little woman in the green dress?", someone asked at a party. "Oh, do you mean my mother?" said one of Lady Hilaria's daughters.

Family was of foremost importance to her, and she overcame all crises in a spirit of unifying enlightenment. Two of her daughters divorced and remarried, but typically Lady Hilaria's response was: "I have four daughters and six sons-in-law."
After Gibbs left the Army the couple ran a successful market gardening business at Roborough House in Devon, before building their retirement home, Aldenham Grange, in Tavistock.

Gibbs died in 1984. For the last eight years of her life Lady Hilaria lived with her youngest daughter in Plymouth, close to Cotehele, Mount Edgcumbe and her childhood Widey homes. Throughout her life she chronicled her experiences and thoughts in flowing rhyming verse, which she modestly dismissed as "doggerel" but which the family now hope to collect and print.
Lady Hilaria is survived by three of her daughters; a fourth daughter predeceased her.

Lady Hilaria Gibbs was born on January 16th 1908. She died on November 19th, 2009, aged 101

Obituary, 4th December 2009
Copyright: The Times

 

 

 

Brigadier Simon Christopher Joseph FRASER DSO, MC, TD 15th Baron Lovat
1911 – 1995

25th Chief of the Clan Fraser and WWII D-Day commando hero on Sword Beach.

At the age of 22 Simon, bearing the currently favoured name for Chiefs of the Clan Fraser, succeeded his father. Known as Shimi, he became the 15th Lord Lovat but for reasons incomprehensible to sassanachs he was commonly known as the 17th Lord Lovat! He was schooled at Ampleforth College and went on to Magdalen College, Oxford…..

Robert Alexander Kennedy RUNCIE MC Baron Runcie
1921 – 2000

Archbishop of Canterbury 1980-1991

More than 2000 people are expected at the funeral today of Lord Runcie, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who died last week of cancer. As the choir sings a Russian kontakion for the dead and the coffin is borne from St. Alban’s Cathedral for internment nearby, the man who knew Lord Runcie as tutor, bishop, archbishop and, foremost, as an unfailingly amusing friend, will say a prayer of commendation.

Bernard Cyril (Tiny) FREYBERG VC, GCMG, KCB, KBE, DSO*** 1st Baron Freyberg 1889 – 1963

One of the most decorated soldiers of all time.

Bernard Freyberg was a soldier who served two nations, New Zealand and England. He was young enough to serve throughout the First World War and be given senior command in the Second; and his career covers an extraordinary range of experience and friendship, setback and achievement.

Brought up in New Zealand Freyberg became a champion swimmer, was trained as a dentist, and departed in January 1914…..

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyReturn to Shop