Thomas Cobley
Thomas Cobley – a potted history. He was born in the local parish of Dodbrooke in 1761 – the son of the vicar at the time (Benjamin Cobley – whose name appears as a Rector of St Thomas à Becket in Dodbrooke – in the heart of Kingsbridge where the local vicar still lives and works) – and, following the early death of his father, he was obliged to leave home and seek his fortune. He moved to Russia and specifically to Odesa (now Ukraine) where he worked in military service during the time of Catherine II (“Catherine The Great”). By 1792 he was a lieutenant-colonel and was given 32,000 acres of land on the left bank of the Odesa estuary as a reward for his historic participation against the Ottoman Empire. In 1801 he became an Odesa City Councillor and between 1811-1812 fought selflessly against a plague which took the lives of several thousand of the city’s inhabitants including almost all the doctors and pharmacists. He became Head of Administration between 1814-1815 and the citizens of Odesa marked their gratitude to him by naming one of the local streets Coblevskaya in his honour.
Following a most generous donation, we have been able to get our painting cleaned, conserved and reframed. This painting which was a copy commissioned by Thomas Cobley’s great nephew (the rather baroque and wonderfully-named John von Sonntag Havilland) from Romuald Choinaki in c.1850 of an original by Carl Reichel from 1819. The original painting, prior to the current Ukraine / Russia conflict, was displayed in the Odesa Art Museum. Its current whereabouts are uncertain. Our painting is therefore an extremely important exhibit.
Photos throughout this essay show the painting before it was cleaned and restored.
This story has reached the Museum by a roundabout route, which began in Guernsey when a friend from Kingsbridge noticed an impressive portrait of a man in military uniform in a private house. When she remarked on the portrait, she discovered that it was of one Thomas Cobley, born in the local parish of Dodbrooke in 1761, and one-time Governor of the Russian city of Odesa. Thomas was the son of the Rector of Dodbrooke (Benjamin Cobley), one of a family of eight (five girls and three boys) and, following the early death of his father, was obliged to leave home and seek his fortune. His sisters all married well, one of them to a merchant in Livorno a staging post on his route east.
When Thomas was born, during the reign of Catherine II of Russia, the Russian Empire was going through a period of great expansion by military and diplomatic means. The Odesa region was one such ‘frontier’ which was captured from the Ottoman Empire in 1792, and the city of Odesa was founded in 1794 by decree. The opportunities in the new city attracted many adventurous young men from other nations, and Thomas Cobley was one of these. Oleg Gubar, a Ukrainian writer and historian, has always been interested in Thomas Cobley as a ‘colourful person of the early history of Odesa’, and the following is condensed from his short article on the subject.
“He suggested that Cobley was Scots, but it seems to be quite well attested that he was a Devonian. However Thomas Cobley was similar to one of Walter Scott’s heroes – poor yet proud. He was brave and noble yet open-hearted, trustful and honest. All these qualities failed to prevent ‘kind Cobley’, as he was called by A.O. Smirnova-Rosset, being forgotten.
Not so long ago one resident of Odesa, who lives on Koblevskay Street announced that the name Cobley should be pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, because… ‘he is French, you know’. This misconception was probably due to the administration and the cream of society of early Odesa being mainly French including Armand, Duc de Richlieu and Langeron, one of Napoleon’s disgraced Generals. Cobley was an active member of this group.
Thomas (Foma Alexandrovich) Cobley was not the only British person to be in Russian military service during the time of Catherine II (“the Great”). The famous hydrographer and traveller, Joseph Billings, whose name is also chronicled in the history of Odesa was the first to chart the local harbour. Cobley was a witness to the birth of Odesa. In 1792 he was a lieutenant-colonel who received 12,000 dessiatin (1 dessiatin = 2.7 acres) of land on the left bank of Tiligulsky estuary area of Odesa as a reward for his heroic participation in a military campaign against the Ottoman Empire.
He allowed Ukrainian Cossacks, fugitive peasants and the odd rogue to rent this land on favourable terms. Later on farmers from Kursk province settled in the same area. This was how Odesa came into being. Cobley’s estate grew into a ‘cosmopolitan Eden’. He was one of the first residents to be given a vast site in August/September 1794 directly from the founders of Odesa – Deribas and Devolan – for the further development of the city. At one time Cobley owned a huge complex of buildings surrounded by modern streets known today as Dvoraynskay, Cobleyvskay, Torgovay and Sadovay. Later on this was divided up into small parcels and sold to different people.
For many years Foma Alexandrovich acted as the military commandant of Odesa. From 1801 he was a city councillor and from 1803 he was the leader of the ‘headquarters of Armand, Duc de Richlieu’ whose confidence he enjoyed. He fought selflessly against a plague in 1811-12 that took the lives of several thousand of the city’s inhabitants including almost all the doctors and pharmacists. Cobley and the Duc de Richlieu with unbelievable courage, went into many of the plague infected homes offering encouragement and providing the families with what they needed. Cobley rode for twenty-four hours to visit all the frontier quarantine posts and organised a cemetery for the plague victims beyond the city limits. In this seemingly hopeless situation he not only remained imperturbable and active but he was able to lift everyone’s morale and inspire comradeship with his spirit. He cheered up his fellow men with amusing songs, salty anecdotes and by his phraseology and touching Russian accent. In the warm memories of his contemporaries such as Auguste de Lagard, Maria Holderness and others he was known for his courage and his cheery devil-may-care recklessness.
An anecdote is told about his marriage. Whilst visiting the Cossack Colonel Tsvetogorodov, Cobley saw his daughter and ‘fell in love like a cat’. The colonel said to him: ‘The Devil knows who you are and your faith is not ours’. The dashing Cobley picked the girl up and put her in front of himself on his horse and galloped for more than 40 versts (about 26 miles) to get married at the first Orthodox Temple on the road. The bride worried that she was ‘unlearned, didn’t know English and didn’t read books’. The groom with his odd accent calmed her: ‘What kind of scientist am I? I also never read books, only our English ballads and tales about corpses’.
Thomas Cobley was the head of administration of Odesa in 1814-1815 between Armand Duc de Richlieu and Langeron. Without exception all the city institutions were created either by the initiative of Major-General Cobley or with his active participation. He played an important role in forming the commercial infrastructure of Odesa and its change into a porto franco (free port). In front of me now there are copies of documents that were addressed ‘To His Excellency Mr. Major-General Commandant of Odesa, holding a post of Governor of the city and Sir. Cavalier Foma Alexandrovich Cobley’. This letter concerned the creation of a stock-exchange and the election ‘of two brokers to the local Registration bureau’ as well as an order for the provision of long term loans to merchants including foreigners.
The citizens of Odesa marked their gratitude to him by naming one of the local streets Coblevskya in his honour. Invariable cordiality and a permanent gaiety of character were distinguishing features of his life: truly he was loved by all around him. His burial was attended by a detachment of the Ladozky infantry regiment of which General Cobley was Colonel-in-Chief and he was buried on his Coblevka Estate.
Nicola Fox, Kingsbridge Cookworthy Museum
(With thanks to Corinne Joy)
