Prisca Coborn
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(1622-08-24)24 August 1622
Prisca Coborn | |
|---|---|
| Born | Prisca Forster (1622-08-24)24 August 1622 |
| Died | 13 November 1701(1701-11-13) (aged 79) |
| Burial place | Bow Church, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, England |
Prisca or Priscilla Coborn, Coburne or Colbourne (née Forster, 24 August 1622 – 13 November 1701) was a wealthy widow who lived in Middlesex, now in the East End of Greater London during the Stuart Era. She was a philanthropist who gave money to the poor and established a school for girls.
Forster was the daughter of John Forster, a minister of Bow Church,[1][2] where she was baptised on 30 August 1622.[3][4][5] On her mother's side, she was descended from bakers, and inherited land locally and in Essex from her maternal grandfather, Thomas Skorier.[1]
In 1675, Forster became the second wife of Thomas Coborn/Colbourne, a brewer in Bow, whose previous wife had died in January after giving birth to their daughter Alice. Thomas rewrote his will to include Prisca and Alice, and died a couple of months after the wedding.[1] Alice Coborn died at the age of fifteen and was buried on what was to have been her wedding day.[5] After her husband's death, Coborn carried on business as a brewer;[6] she had over 900 barrels of strong beer and over 200 barrels of small beer in her cellars in 1698.[1] She was generous to the poor, distributing £10 annuities in Bow on four days of the year known as Coborn Days (30 January, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and her birthday in August (which was also St Bartholomew's Day).[1] In 1683, she donated a paten to Bow Church.[5]
On her death in 1701, through the terms of her will, dated 6 May 1701,[5] Prisca Coborn established the Coborn School for Girls in Bow.[1][7] She also gave money to help the poor of Bow and Stepney in the East End of London,[3][6] and bequeathed funds for an ornamental plaster ceiling in Bow Church.[8] A ward in St Bartholomew's Hospital was named Coborn in recognition of her gifts.[9] One of the bells in the church of St Dunstan's, Stepney was dedicated to Mrs. Prisca Coborn when cast in 1806.[10] A historian writing in 1885 estimated that the value of her bequests to Bow parish for charitable and religious purposes was, in 1885, "equivalent to a capital sum of not less than £14,000".[2]
Locally, she is remembered by the street names Coborn Road (called Cut Throat Lane before 1800)[11] and Coborn Street,[12] the Coborn Arms public house,[13][14] and the Coborn Centre for Adolescent Mental Health.[15]
She is buried at Bow Church, where a memorial to her (as Prisca Coburne) opposite that of her stepdaughter records her charitable bequests.[4][5][16]
Notes
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cox, Jane (2013). Old East Enders: A History of the Tower Hamlets. History Press. ISBN 9780750956291. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
- 1 2 Freshfield, Edwin (1895). The Communion Plate of the Parish Churches in the County of London. Rixon and Arnold. p. xxxii. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
- 1 2 East End Talking
- 1 2 Osborn C. Hills, Saint Mary Stratford, Bow, Monographs of the Committee for the Survey of the Memorials of Greater London 2, London: E. Arnold, 1900, OCLC 4042162, p. 35.
- 1 2 3 4 5 McNaught, Charles (12 March 1910). "Roundabout Old East London: Mistress Prisca Coborn". East London Observer. p. 7. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
- 1 2 McNaught, Charles (30 November 1912). "Roundabout Old East London. Stepney and Prisca Coborn". East London Observer. p. 7. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
- ↑ A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 1, p. 290
- ↑ Hills, Saint Mary Stratford, Bow, p. 12.
- ↑ Norman Moore, The History of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London: Arthur Pearson, 1918, OCLC 2624369, Volume 2, p. 854.
- ↑ "Old East London, II. Stepney". East London Observer. 27 August 1887. p. 3. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
- ↑ Pevsner·, Sir Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (2005). London. Volume 5. Penguin Books. p. 616. ISBN 978-0-300-10701-2. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
- ↑ Bolitho, Hector; Peel, Derek (1952). Without the City Wall: An Adventure in London Street-names, North of the River. Murray. p. 104. ISBN 9787800399794. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - ↑ "Sales by Auction". Morning Advertiser. 30 May 1831. p. 4. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
By direction of the Administratrix, THE valuable Lease and Goodwill of a highly respectable new-built Public-house and Wine-vaults, with skittle-ground, stabling, and back entrance, known as the COBORN ARMS, most desirably situate and being the East side of Coborn-road, within a few doors of the Bow-road, very considerable and highly improving neighbourhood
- ↑ "Bow Belles – the London Pubs Group crawl of Bow". London Drinker. The magazine from the London Branches of the Campaign for Real Ale. 19 February 2019. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
- ↑ The Coborn Centre for Adolescent Mental Health Archived 12 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Page, John T. (3 February 1900). "The Eastern Suburbs a Century Ago. What They Were Like in 1800". The East London Advertiser. p. 7. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
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