COBBE, (Richard) Alexander Charles CVO 1945-2026

[Richard R]

From the Telegraph of 7 April 2026: COBBE Richard Alexander Charles, CVO, aged 81, of Newbridge House, Co Dublin, and Hatchlands Park, Surrey. Beloved husband of Isabel, father, grandfather, brother and uncle. Died peacefully at home, on 31st March, surrounded by his family. Private family funeral, autumn memorial service.

He was son of Lt Francis Charles COBBE RNVR 1913-49 scion of that Irish gentry family and his wife and cousin Joan Mervyn 1915-2005 d of Capt Mervyn Hugh COBBE RN 1873-kas1915 and Caroline Anne Maude d 1945 d of Gen Sir Charles George ARBUTHNOT KCB 1824-99 and Caroline Charlotte CLARKE c1845-1909. He m Hon Isabel Anne Marie Henrietta DILLON b 1942 d of Lt- Col 20 Viscount DILLON 1911-79 and Irene Marie France MERANDON DU PLESSIS 1921-2008, and had two sons and two daus.

He was made a CVO in February: https://groups.google.com/g/peerage-news/c/qbUREYCG9AY/m/xt13lNg0BAAJ

[Richard R]

Obit in the Times of 9 April 2026:

E X T R A C T

Alec Cobbe obituary: Anglo-Irish aesthete 

Custodian of two great country houses, adviser on interiors to the King and owner of a famous collection of historic instruments

Alec Cobbe liked to demonstrate how a country house functioned rather than to show off its contents. Though there was much to flaunt in his family collection, from first-rate old master paintings to exquisite 18th-century furniture, he resisted the temptation to do so. Instead, he enjoyed explaining how these objects contributed to the overall aesthetic of an environment.  

... Trained originally as a doctor before turning to picture restoration, he brought to the study of objects — be they paintings, musical instruments or furniture — a combination of technical precision and aesthetic instinct. This made him one of the most accomplished hangers of pictures of his generation. Though his advice was much in demand, he modestly played down his reputation as “a master of country-house style”, deferring instead to “people like John Fowler and Robert Kime”. 
Richard Alexander Charles Cobbe, known as Alec, was born in Dublin in 1945, the son of Francis Charles Cobbe, of Newbridge House, Donabate, Co Dublin, and his wife, Joan (née Mervyn). The Cobbes were among the established Anglo-Irish families of the 18th century, and Newbridge, one of the most complete surviving Georgian houses in Ireland, provided a setting in which the relationship between objects, rooms and inherited taste was taken for granted rather than explained. ...

... If Newbridge House gave him his inheritance, it also gave him his exacting standards of how a country house should function. He later described the house as “the single greatest influence on my life”, recalling an “idyllic lamp-lit childhood” in rooms that still lacked electricity, with rainwater pumped daily to a tank at the top of the house. In Ireland, where so many country houses were stripped, abandoned or allowed to decay, Newbridge remained a rare example not only of survival but of continuity. 

... The same sensibility informed his long association with the King, then the Prince of Wales, for whom he acted as an adviser on interiors. ... Charles became such an admirer of his that he even asked Cobbe to design the invitations for Prince William’s “Out of Africa”-themed 21st birthday party.

... He had married, in 1970, the Hon Isabel Dillon, daughter of the 20th Viscount Dillon, and is survived by her and by their four children, Frances, Thomas, Rose and Henry. Together with his family he made Hatchlands not a museum but a working house, in which taste was exercised daily and without self-consciousness.

... Shortly before Cobbe’s death, the King appointed him Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.

Alec Cobbe CVO, picture restorer, decorator and collector, was born on January 9, 1945. He died in his sleep on March 31, 2026, aged 81

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/alec-cobbe-obituary-anglo-irish-aesthete-k37vp7p8g