Elizabeth Knipe Cobbold

Born in London in 1766 and brought up mostly in Liverpool and Manchester, Elizabeth Knipe became the second wife of Ipswich brewer John Cobbold in 1791.

Elizabeth Knipe published a book of poetry by the time she was 18 and took a keen interest in the theatre and politics – with her abolitionist views of slavery evident in her writing. The family took holidays in the Lake District and Derbyshire where she became interested in landscape and botany and also met her first husband, William Clarke, an Ipswich customs officer and Portman. Their marriage in 1790 brought Elizabeth Knipe Clarke to Ipswich, though William, much older than her, died later that year. Fortunately, Elizabeth stayed here and married the Ipswich brewer John Cobbold.

Perhaps because her life was more settled (her father had moved around a lot) or because she had to stay put to look after her 15 step-children (plus adding 7 of her own) and certainly because her husband 'allowed' it (in law she was her husband’s possession), Elizabeth Knipe Cobbold’s creativity flourished after her marriage into the Cobbold family.

Elizabeth was prolific in the production of poetry at this time and had an intense interest in the theatre in Ipswich and Norwich. She also produced paper-cut silhouettes, used as Valentines at her ‘reputed’ Ipswich parties and one on her famous servant Margaret Catchpole.

Elizabeth was a scientific pioneer and whilst in Ipswich she took part in the ‘Enlightenment’ with great enthusiasm.

Her early interest in science came to fruition when the family moved to Holywells in 1814, and she was able to collect and identify fossils from the crag pits on her own estate (now Holywells and Landseer Parks). Around this time the first comprehensive scientific reference work on British fossils, 'Mineral Conchology of Great Britain', was published, and Elizabeth Cobbold’s scientific contacts put her in touch with James Sowerby the author. He figured many of her specimens as new species and, thus, she became one of a small band of pioneering Georgian scientists helping to push forward knowledge of the natural world.

In 1819 Elizabeth Cobbold sent a box of crag fossils to Gideon Mantell and in return he sent her some fossils later that year. In 1829 Gideon Mantell sent his ‘Crag shells collected by Elizabeth Cobbold’ to Baron ‘Georges’ Cuvier, French anatomist who has been called ‘the father of palaeontology’ for the Natural History Museum in Paris. This was after her death - Elizabeth Cobbold died 17 October 1824.

Such early scientific endeavour deserves to be recorded and celebrated. Indeed, Sowerby named a fossil bivalve Nucula cobboldiae after her, “Being desirous of commemorating Mrs Cobbold, whose copious collection obtained with great industry…… I have named this rare, and withal elegant shell after her”.

The plaque was unveiled on 3oth November 2024.