Richard Cobbold

Richard Cobbold Poems

Richard Cobbold Biography

Richard Cobbold was born in 1797 in the Suffolk town of Ipswich, to John Cobbold (1745-1835) and Elizabeth (née Knipe) (1764-1824), a large and affluent family who made their money from the brewing industry. Their name lives on in Ipswich in the firm of Tolly Cobbold to this day. Educated at Caius College, Cambridge, Cobbold entered the church, starting at St Mary Le Tower in Ipswich before moving to Wortham in 1825 with his wife and three sons. He remained there until his death in 1877. One of the sons, Edward Augustus (b. 1825), became vicar of the neighbouring parish of Yaxley, and another Thomas Spencer, a leading parasitologist. During his time at Wortham, more significantly, he recorded the daily lives of his various parishioners, both in words and pictures. His four volumes eventually found a home at the Suffolk Record Office, and have become an invaluable source of information about everyday life in the countryside at that time. In 1977 a book entitled The Biography of a Victorian Village was published, in which Ronald Fletcher presents Richard Cobbold's account of 1860s Wortham.)

The Best Poem Of Richard Cobbold

Taking An Ostrich

This Ostrich taken, vainly tries
From chord of Courser to be free;
She struggles hard, but man defies
Her bold attempt at liberty.
Ah! Lady take the simile:
As Ostrich caught by twisted chord,
So Woman must obey her Lord.

Awhile, in youth you wander o’er
The golden path of promised joy,
Nor think captivity has store
Of care, life’s bitterest alloy: -
You play with love, as child with toy;
But ah this Ostrich; it will prove
You cannot ‘scape the Chord of Love.

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