Known in Australia as Charles Richards
"He died far from where he was born, under a name that was not his own."From the narrative chapter
This Family Line
A Sussex boy who went to sea at sixteen, deserted a ship in Melbourne in 1883, took a new name, and spent thirty years building a farm and a family on reclaimed swampland in Victoria. Not until DNA testing became available did his true origins come to light.
The full story — from the Linchmere woodland to the merchant navy, from desertion in Melbourne to a farm on the Great Swamp, and the mining accident at Broken Hill that ended it all. Includes palaeographic analysis of the signature sequence and the story of the documents that were burned.
● Available now Research ReportThe research report establishing Richard Cobb and Charles Richards as the same individual. Includes Bayesian DNA analysis using BanyanDNA — twenty-plus tested descendants triangulating to the Cobb family line, nine to the Voller line, and the parallel case of Herbert Cobb / Arthur Taylor.
○ In preparation Interactive MapAn animated map of Richard Cobb's five and a half years at sea — from his apprenticeship in Littlehampton in December 1877 to his desertion in Melbourne in January 1883. Four ships, four oceans, two Indian Ocean gales, and the moment he became Charles Richards. Routes follow documented trade wind and cape sailing corridors; crew lists survive for the Falcon and Bridesmaid voyages.
● Available now Period ChartRichard Cobb's four voyages plotted on J. S. Hobbs's "General Chart for the purpose of pricking off a Ship's Track", published in London in 1877 — the year his apprenticeship began. Pan and zoom across the period chart to follow each ship between its documented ports of call.
● Available now InfographicA visual timeline of Richard Cobb's life — from the Sussex woodlands to the merchant navy, from desertion in Melbourne to a farm on the Koo-wee-rup Swamp, and the fatal accident at Broken Hill that ended it all.
● Available nowFrom the narrative chapter
The Cobb and Voller families had lived in and around Linchmere, in the western High Weald of Sussex, for generations. The men were predominantly agricultural labourers, their lives shaped by the Wealden countryside and its woodland trades. But by the time Richard and his younger brother Herbert were growing up in the 1860s and 1870s, that world was contracting.
The sons of woodland labourers in Linchmere were inheriting a way of life that was running out of future.