Felix Cobbold

Felix Thornley Cobbold (8 September 1841 Ipswich – 6 December 1909)^[1] was a British banker, barrister and Liberal Party politician. He was a member of the Ipswich Cobbold brewing family but not a brewer himself.

Felix was born in Holywells Mansion, Ipswich. He was the son of John Cobbold, Member of Parliament for Ipswich, and his wife Lucy, daughter of Henry Patteson (sometime Rector of Drinkstone and of Wortham, Suffolk). John Cobbold, Thomas Cobbold and Nathaniel Cobbold, grandfather of Cameron Cobbold, 1st Baron Cobbold, were his elder brothers. He was educated at King's College, Cambridge, and returned to the college as a senior fellow in 1871, serving as the estates bursar until 1876.^[2] Cobbold also sat as member of parliament for Stowmarket in Suffolk between 1885 and 1886, and for Ipswich between 1906 and his death. Although he opposed Irish Home Rule originally, he returned to the Liberal Party as an advanced Radical. In 1895 he presented Christchurch Mansion to the town of Ipswich as part of an arrangement to preserve the mansion and surrounding Christchurch Park from development.^[3] He also bequeathed Gippeswyk Park to Ipswich. Cobbold died in December 1909, aged 68.

• Baron Cobbold

Clive Hodges: Cobbold & Kin: Life Stories from an East Anglian Family (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2014) ISBN 9781843839545

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Felix Cobbold