Richard Cobb was born in Linchmere, Sussex in 1861 to a woodsman’s family. The Cobb family has deep roots in Linchmere and the Haslemere area of Sussex, and his grandfather, James Voller, came from a family at Fernhurst. Richard left all of this behind going to sea in 1877 before jumping ship in Melbourne in 1883 and changing his name to Charles Richards.