rd
The History of Margaret Catchpole, a Suffolk Girl
INTRODUCTION
Three personalities interest us in reading the novel of Margaret Catchpole– the author, the heroine, and the author’s mother, in whose service the real Margaret Catchpole was employed. Neither the author nor his mother has been the subject of much biographical effort, although Richard Cobbold was an industrious novelist, poet, and essayist for a long period of years, and wrote this one book that will always, I think, be read. His mother, Elizabeth Cobbold, made some reputation as a writer of verse, and is immortalized for us in Charles Dickens’s Mrs. Leo Hunter. Fortunately we have a sketch of her by one Laetitia Jermyn, dated 1825, and attached to a volume of Poems, published at Ipswich in that year.1 Laetitia Jermyn tells us that Elizabeth’s maiden name was Knipe, and that she was born in Watling Street, London, about 1764, her father being Robert Knipe of Liverpool. In 1787 she published a little volume of verse entitled Six Narrative Poems, which she dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, evidently by permission. It is clear that in girlhood she had made the acquaintance of the great painter. Her biographer says nothing about her being an actress, but it is a tradition in Ipswich that this was for a time her profession. In 1790 she was married at Liverpool to William Clarke, a Portman of the borough and Comptroller of the Customs of Ipswich, who was apparently about sixty years of age and in very delicate health. The sprightly young wife wrote the following lines to her husband on St. Valentine’s Day, soon after their marriage: —
Eliza to William this Valentine sends,
While ev’ry good wish on the present attends;
And freely she writes, undisturb’d by a fear,
Tho’ prudes may look scornful, and libertines sneer.
Tho’ tatlers and tale-bearers smiling may say,
"Your Geniuses always are out of the way,”
Sure none but herself would such levities mix,
With the seriousness suited to grave twenty-six.
A Wife send a Valentine! Lord, what a whim!
And then of all people to send it to him!
Make love to her husband! my stars, how romantic!
The Girl must be certainly foolish or frantic;
But I always have thought so, else what could engage
Her to marry a man who is twice her own age?
While the tabbies are thus on my motives enlarging,
My sentiments William may read in the margin.
On the wings of old Time have three months past away
Since I promis’d ”to honour, to love, and obey,”
And surely my William’s own heart will allow
That my conduct has ne’er disagreed with my vow.
Would health spread her wings round my husband and lord,
To his cheeks could the smiles of delight be restor’d;
The blessing with gratitude I should receive,
As the greatest that Mercy benignant could give;
And heedless of all that conjecture may say,
With praise would remember St. Valentine’s day.
I quote this valentine at length because it is a fair sample of the quality of our poet’s efforts. At the end of the eighteenth century, and far into the nineteenth, a rhyming faculty of this kind was quite sufficient to make a literary reputation in an English provincial town, and in the case of Mrs. Clarke it was followed up by the writing of a novel, The Sword, published at Liverpool in 1791. It is interesting to find the name of Roscoe the historian among the subscribers for this book. In the same year – within six months of her marriage – the writer lost her husband.
The interest of Elizabeth Knipe’s life, however, begins for us when very shortly after this she became the wife of John Cobbold, of the Cliff Brewery, Ipswich. Cobbold was a widower. He had already had sixteen children, of whom fourteen were then living. When it is remembered that by his second wife he had six more children it will be seen that there was a large family, and it is not surprising therefore that the Cobbold name is still very much in evidence in Norfolk and Suffolk, and particularly in Ipswich. “Placed in the bosom of this numerous family”, writes her biographer, “and indulged in the means of gratifying her benevolent and liberal spirit, ‘The Cliff’ became the home of her dearest affections, the residence of taste, and the scene of hospitality.” One need not complain of the lady that she was not very much of a poet, for she had otherwise a versatile character. In addition to being, as we are assured, a good housekeeper, she was, if her self-portraiture be accepted, a worker in many fields: —
A botanist one day, or grave antiquarian,
Next morning a sempstress, or abecedarian;
Now making a frock, and now marring a picture,
Next conning a deep, philosophical lecture;
At night at the play, or assisting to kill
The time of the idlers with whist or quadrille;
In cares or amusements still taking a part,
Though science and friendship are nearest my heart.
Laetitia Jermyn tells us much about her charity and kindness of heart, her zeal in behalf of many movements to help the poor, and she dwells with enthusiasm upon her friend’s literary achievements.2 But the scope of this Introduction to her son’s book does not justify devoting more attention to the mother, although her frequent appearance in Margaret Catchpole’s partially true story demands that something be said about her “mistress”. Elizabeth Cobbold died in 1824. Her husband outlived her for eleven years. John Cobbold (1746-1835) traced back his family in the direct line as landowners in Suffolk to a Robert Cobbold, who died in 1603. He was a banker as well as a brewer, and lived first at “The Cliff” and afterwards at “Holywells”, which has ever since been the seat of the head of the family. It was the fourteenth child of his first marriage – Henry Gallant Cobbold – who was saved from drowning by Margaret Catchpole.
It was Richard Cobbold, one of the six sons of the second marriage of John Cobbold, who was the author of this story. When he was born he had ten nephews and nieces awaiting him, the children of his brothers and sisters of the first family, and he was at school with his own nephew, who was just a fortnight younger than himself. The nephew was John Chevallier Cobbold, who for twenty-one years represented Ipswich in Parliament. For this information I am indebted to a grandson3, who also sends me the following anecdotes: —
When John Cobbold – the father of twenty-two children – was High Sheriff, he once persuaded the Judge to come to dine with him on condition that there should be no one to meet him except his (J. C.’s) own family. When the Judge was shown into a drawing-room full of people, he was very angry, and said loudly before the company, “Mr. Cobbold, you have deceived me.” Explanations followed, and the Judge was introduced to the various members of the family.
Elizabeth Cobbold was in the habit of saying that when she married her husband she found no books in the house except Bibles and account-books.
Brewing was such good business in those days that John Cobbold was able to give to each of his two youngest sons (twenty-first and twenty-second children) a University education, and to buy for each of them a church living worth £1,000 a year.
Richard Cobbold was educated at Bury St. Edmunds and at Caius College, Cambridge, was destined for the Church, and when he married he was a curate in Ipswich4, but his father obtained for him the living of Wortham, near Diss, where he was Rector from 1825 until his death in 1877. He was also rural dean of Hartismere. Several years after celebrating his golden wedding – Dr. Spencer Cobbold informs me – he and his wife died within a day or two of each other; the survivor did