Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cobbold, Elizabeth
COBBOLD, ELIZABETH (1767–1824), poetical writer, born in Watling Street, London, in 1767, was a daughter of Robert Knipe, afterwards of Manchester and Liverpool, by his wife, a Miss Waller. In 1787 Miss Knipe published her first work, 'Six Narrative Poems,' by subscription, and dedicated it to Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom she was well known. In 1789 she wrote an epilogue to a play performed at Liverpool; and at the end of 1790 she was married in that city to William Clarke, comptroller of the customs at Ipswich, a man much her senior and a great invalid. In 1791, as Eliza Clarke, she published at Liverpool, and also by subscription, 'The Sword, or Father Bertrand's History of his own Times,' a novel, in 2 vols. She lost her first husband, Clarke, six months after their marriage. In 1792 she married John Cobbold of the Cliff Brewery, Ipswich, a widower of considerable property, with fourteen children. Mrs. Cobbold had six sons and one daughter by her second husband; but she was indefatigable with her pen and her pencil, and her hospitalities and charities, both at The Cliff and Holy wells, her subsequent residence. In 1800, under the pseudonym of Carolina Petty Pasty, she published 'The Mince Pye,' a poetical skit, the frontispiece to which is a portrait of Mrs. Glasse, from Mrs. Cobbold's own hand. In 1803 she edited the poems of 'The Suffolk Cottager,' Ann Candler [q. v.], prefixing a memoir to them; and having commenced some noted valentine parties about 1806, she published sets of these, as 'Cliff Valentines,' in 1813 and 1814, followed by an 'Ode to Waterloo' in 1815. She established a clothing society for infant poor in 1812, a charitable bazaar in 1820, and she was a frequent contributor to such periodicals as 'The Chaplet,' Raw's 'Ladies' Fashionable Repository,' &c.
Mrs. Cobbold wrote a monodrama, 'Cassandra,' performed by Miss Macauley at what was then called the European Saloon, King Street, St. James's; and she wrote an address for Miss Goward (afterwards Mrs. Robert Keeley), the singer, on her appearance at the Ipswich theatre, the vocalist's talent having been discovered and fostered by her. Mrs. Cobbold died on 17 Oct. 1824. In 1825 many of her fugitive pieces were collected and published at Ipswich in two editions, the large size embellished with her own drawings. For this volume of 'Poems' a memoir was written by Lætitia Jermyn; and the large copies have portraits of the poetess and Mr. Cobbold. Mrs. Cobbold helped Sir W. Smith over his 'Flora Anglica,' and Sowerby named a shell after her, the Nucula Cobboldice.
[Poems, 1825 (large ed.), the Memoir affixed, et infra; The Mince Pye, by Carolina Petty Pasty.]