Richard Brooks Cobden

In 1856, the Cobden’s son Richard, when away at school in Germany, died from scarlet fever. He was 15 years old and the Cobdens never got over this terrible loss. In a letter to a friend, Richard wrote of the ordeal of having to inform his wife of their son’s death:

“…….. the third letter I opened informed me that my dear boy, who by the latest accounts was described as the healthiest and strongest in the school, was dead and in his grave. No one not placed in the same situation can form the faintest conception of my task in making the journey to this place [his home Dunford], which took me five hours, bearing a secret which I knew was worse than a sentence of death on my poor wife…… I tried to manage my communication, but the dreadful journey had been too much for me, and I broke down instantly, and was obliged to confess all. She did not comprehend the loss, but was only stunned; and for twenty-four hours was actually lavishing attentions on me, and superintending her household as before. ……..”

In a letter some months later, he wrote of his wife’s grieving: “My poor wife, makes but slow progress in the recovery of her health. She is on the lawn or in the field all day with a little spade in hand, digging up the weeds. ………. The open air must give her strength, but as yet she has not been able to pass a night without aid of opiates.”

And in another letter:

“She is as helpless as one of her young children, and requires as much forbearance and kindness. God, knows how much the comfort and regularity of her domestic life have always been made subservient, willingly and meekly so, to my political engagements, without one atom of ambition to profit by the privileges which to some natures offer a kind of compensation for family discomfort. And, bearing this in view, I have from the moment that this terrible blow fell on us, determined to make every other claim on my time and attention subordinate (even to the giving up of my seat) to the task of mitigating her sufferings.”