The Reverend Richard Wilkie Waller Cobbold is strongly criticized in Hollesley's "Suffolk Pulpit" review on the second page of the 17 July 1860 supplement to the Suffolk Chronicle (14 July, page 6 of 8 at Findmypast). Extracts were published in East Anglian Miscellany no 11,583 (1947, page 13, from the East Anglian Daily Times). The journalist Richard Gowing is identified in an article introducing the "Suffolk Pulpit" series in East Anglian Miscellany no 11,205 (page 35 from 1944). He wrote in 1860:
"The Rectory of Hollesley is worth 943l [£943], per annum, and about 30 acres of glebe. ... Mr. Cobbold is fortunate in holding so valuable a living, and we think we may say by consequence fortunate in having chosen the Church as a profession, for without desiring to place too low an estimate upon the capacity which he displays in the pulpit, we doubt whether he would have made so good an income in any other pursuit which he could have selected. He is a young minister, with none of the characteristics of a wealthy rector in his appearance and manner. If we might use a somewhat unlicensed expression we should say he was as much like a curate as ever we saw a man. His speech is loud, sharp, and quick, and the syllables seem to speed down the long centre of this building like the crack of electricity; there is something startling in it, and it seems to penetrate the walls. He stands bolt upright in his lofty pulpit and seems to throw his voice along the roof, determined that the sounds shall descend with all their acuteness upon the furthermost hearer in the west end of the church."
There is more about the rector's mechanical delivery and the content of his sermon, but not about the rectory, so here endeth the lesson.
David
