Richard Cobden, 1804 - 1865.
 
Richard Cobden was born on the 3rd of June, 1804 in an old farm house at Dunford in Heyshott. He came from ancient yeoman stock, known for several generations in the district.
William Cobden, his father, was a small farmer, who, through his own bad management, was forced to sell his farm. Relations took charge of his eleven children and Richard, who was the fourth child, was sent to school in Yorkshire for 5 years; five years of misery of the kind of which Dickens wrote.
 
In 1819 Richard became a clerk in his uncle's warehouse and later went the rounds as a commercial traveller, getting orders for muslins and calicoes and collecting accounts. In 1828 with a couple of friends, Richard raised £1,000, mostly by loans, and persuaded a firm of calico-printers to trust him with the sale of their goods. The partnership worked well and they were soon making money; three years later the firm leased an old factory at Salden, a village between Blackburn and Clitheroe in Lancashire, and began to print their own calicoes [cotton material].
 
Richard Cobden took up residence in Manchester in 1832. His printing gained his name a good reputation and he made a fortune. At this time he felt he was able to do some of the things he had always wanted to do, and he taught himself French and read a lot of books concerned with education and European history. Cobden then travelled to the United States in June, 1835 returning in August, and in 1836 he went to Constantinople, Greece, Egypt and on to Asia Minor [Turkey].
 
He then came back to England and studied British and foreign politics. He took part in local government and so started his political career. He was keenly interested in the field of National Education. However, at a general election which followed the accession of Queen Victoria, Richard Cobden, when he stood as candidate for Stockport, polled 418 of a total of 900 votes.
 
In 1838 Cobden visited Germany to observe the future political effects of the new Zollvercin. In late 1838 a band of seven Manchester merchants met to form a new association, they were speedily joined by others, Cobden among them, which became the Anti Corn Law League. At about this time it seems that in pursuing his political career, his business had been left in the hands of his brother, Frederick; he was not an able businessman and it had gone down-hill.
 
In 1840 Richard Cobden married Miss Catherine Williams, a Welsh lady, and soon became the father of a son born in 1841. It was in this year that he became an M.P. Within a few years his business difficulties became serious and Cobden was a ruined man. However, a subscription was raised of nearly £80,000, collected in commemoration of his services to the Anti Corn Law League. Much of this money was used to pay off his debts and he also bought back his birth-place, 'Dunford' in Heyshott. The balance was invested in the Illinios Central Railway which was very successful.
 
Cobden's first speech in Parliament in 1841 put the situation that, due to the corn law killing free trade, food prices were rising, and the labour force in this country was not getting enough wages to buy food, and people were starving over most of the country.

 
His work went on and in 1846 with his companions Bright, Villiars, Ashworth and George Wilson plugging away not only from the House of Commons, but throughout the length and breadth of the country, he spoke for shorter working hours for factory workers as well as putting his argument that the duty on corn was the great obstacle to the vast increase in foreign demand for British goods.
 
The corn law in 1815 allowed corn to be imported when wheat had risen to eighty shillings per quarter. By the law of 1822 this improved to permitting importation when the price was seventy shillings a quarter.
 
In 1827 an introduction of a new corn bill on March 1st. was when the average price reached seventy shillings, wheat might be imported with a nominal duty of one shilling on the other hand when the average price fell to fifty shillings, the duty on foreign wheat would be forty shillings. Other variations occured after 1828 but each only put money into the land owners pocket.
 
With many years of changing Governments, and other more important items coming before Parliament, the corn bill was deferred many times. After a long fight Cobden and his followers had their success and the third reading of the Bill took place in the House of Commons on May 16th 1846 at 4 o'clock in the morning. It was finally passed by the House of Lords, with a majority of 47 on June 26th the same year. And so the corn laws were abolished.
 
In 1853 Cobden pulled down the old farm house at Dunford and built the house as it is known today.
 
In 1856 Cobden suffered a big domestic blow, when on 6th April the sudden news of the death of his son reached him. The boy was 15 years old, and at school in Weinheim, near Heidelberg, in Germany, where he died of Scarlet Fever. His body was brought back to England and buried at West Lavington church some two miles from Dunford.
 
In 1860, a commercial treaty was being thrashed out in France, and after several months the treaty was signed by Cobden and Cowley. The tariff remained to be settled and this took several months to complete, but was finally brought to a satisfactory close, and Mr. Gladstone explained the provisions of the treaty to the House of Commons on 10th February 1860. He paid a well earned tribute to Cobden's labours and Lord Palmerstone offered Cobden a Baronetcy or the rank of Privy Councillor, which was courteously declined. It was now, in 1860 that a second subscription was privately raised to the amount of £40,000, with part of which he bought two small farms in Heyshott, namely 'Walkers Farm' and 'Cranmore', no doubt as an investment.
 
The main work of Cobden's life was now drawing to a close, but he kept up his writings in the press, and in 1862 he produced a pamphlet on "The Three Panics" of 1848-1853-1862. In this year he was one of the four persons proposed to be governors of the school to be built in Heyshott. In July 1864 Cobden moved a resolution for extending the principles of non-intervention by force of arms in the internal affairs of foreign countries. In November of that year Cobden made his last speech in the House of Commons, and one other in his own constituency. Shortly after this he became ill with asthma. In bitter weather he went to London intending to take part in the discussion on

 
the Canadian Fortifications, at the House of Commons. He took lodgings in Suffolk Street to be close to the House of Commons, but was taken ill, confined to bed with asthma and bronchitis, and he died on Sunday, 2nd April 1865.
 
Richard Cobden was buried amid a very large concourse of sorrowing friends, public and private, he was laid beside his son, at West Lavington Church.
 
Richard Cobden was eminent for the amiability of his private character, as for public virtue - he never made an enemy, even though he went through trials of life which in some respects had less than its share of happy fortune. Cobden's public -spirited work is commemorated in Camden Town, London where there is a full length statue of him.
 
His daughter Jane Cobden placed a plaque on the South Wall beside his pew in Heyshott church where he worshipped.

 
Plaque on the south wall.
 
In loving memory of Richard Cobden who was born at the old farm house of Dunford in this parish on the 3rd, June 1804.
A Sussex man he was universally known as a great reformer and became leader of the Anti-Corn-Law League.
 
His Private virtues were equal to his public spirit. He was loved by his neighbours.
In his life-time his fame spread all over the world and his name shall be for evermore.
 
He died on 2nd, of April 1865. and is buried in the churchyard at West Lavington
 
TO GUIDE OUR FEET INTO THE WAY OF PEACE
 
This tablet was laid here by his daughter Jane Cobden Unwin and her husband T. Fisher Unwin.

At the base of the plaque is several ears of corn with the stems crossed.
 
In 1864 two Sequoia Wellingtonia gigantea trees [Giant Redwoods] were dedicated to Richard Cobden and John Bright in the State Park, California. The trees were some 4,000 years old. Cobden's tree measured 13' 11" dia. and 260 feet in height. and John's 13' 3" in dia. and 170 feet high. Seeds from these trees were brought to the woods at Dunford and planted in 1936.