Social Victorians/People/Dunmore

Also Known As

• Family name: Murray
• Earl of Dunmore
• Viscount Fincastle
  • Charles Adolphus Murray, Viscount Fincastle (1841–1845)
  • Alexander Edward Murray, Viscount Fincastle (1871? - )
• Lady Evelyn Murray
• Lady Evelyn Cobbold
• Zainab Cobbold
• Lady Zainab

Demographics

• Nationality:

Residences

• Lady Evelyn Murray Cobbold: East Anglia, after marriage (April 1891)

Religion

• Lady Evelyn Murray Cobbold: Muslim

Family

• Charles Adolphus Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore (24 March 1841 – 27 August 1907)
• Lady Gertrude Coke Murray

1. Lady Evelyn Murray Cobbold (1867 – 25 January 1963)
2. Lady Muriel Murray (1869 – 27 September 1946)
3. Alexander Edward Murray, styled Viscount Fincastle, later 8th Earl of Dunmore (22 April 1871 – 29 January 1962)
4. Lady Grace Murray (17 February 1873 – 23 September 1960)
5. Lady Victoria Alexandrina Murray (17 May 1877 – 13 December 1925)
6. Lady Mildred Murray (13 November 1878 – 7 June 1969)

• Lady Evelyn Murray Cobbold (1867 – 25 January 1963)
• John Dupuis Cobbold ()

1. Total 3 children born 1893–1900 (Facey)
2. A number of grandchildren whom she apparently knew well

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

Acquaintances

Lady Evelyn Murray Cobbold

• Hafiz Wahba, Saudi Arabia minister in London
• Harry St. John (‘Abd Allah) Philby and his wife Dora in Jiddah
• "[P]rince (and future [K]ing) Faisal" of Saudi Arabia (Facey)

Friends

Lady Evelyn Murray Cobbold

• Marmaduke Pickthall, from 1915 (Facey)

Timeline

1867, Lady Evelyn Murray was born in Edinburgh.

1891 April, Lady Evelyn Murray married John Dupuis Cobbold in Cairo (Facey).

1893–1900, Lady Evelyn Cobborn bore 3 children.

By 1900, Cobbold was "journeying without her husband" (Facey).

1911, Cobbold traveled to Egypt with a female companion and published about this trip in 1912 (Facey).

1912, Cobbold published an account of her trip to Egypt in 1911 called Wayfarers in the Libyan Desert (Facey).

1914–1915, Cobbold was sometimes known as Lady Zainab: "a series of letters in Arabic survives from 1914 and 1915, from Arab friends [in Egypt] and in Syria. Some address her as 'Our sister in Islam, Lady Zainab,' using her adopted Muslim name" (Facey). Cobbold seems to have been fluent in Arabic from her visits to Morocco as a child.

1922, John Cobbold and Lady Evelyn separated formally (Facey).

1929, John Cobbold died.

1933, Zainab Cobbold made the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, the first British-born Muslim woman to do so (Lady Evelyn Cobbold).

1934, Zainab Cobbold published an account of her Hajj, called Pilgrimage to Mecca.

1963 January 25, Zainab Cobbold died.

Anthology

Cobbold wrote in Pilgrimage to Mecca about her early life and realization that she was Muslim:

As a child, I spent the winter months in a Moorish villa on a hill outside Algiers…. There I learned to speak Arabic and my delight was to escape my governess and visit the Mosques with my Algerian friends, and unconsciously I was a little Moslem at heart…. Some years went by and I happened to be in Rome staying with some Italian friends when my host asked if I would like to visit the Pope. Of course I was thrilled…. When His Holiness suddenly addressed me, asking if I was a Catholic, I was taken aback for a moment and then replied that I was a Moslem. What possessed me I don’t pretend to know, as I had not given a thought to Islam for many years. A match was lit and I then and there determined to read up and study the Faith. (qtd in Facey)

Cobbold wrote a poem in 1899 that expresses spiritual feelings:

... The vague longings that filled my soul
Took the form of a prayer I upward sped,
To Him, the One, The Essence of All….

And the weird cadence of the Mueddin’s cry
Bid the faithful prepare for the day that was nigh.... (Facey)

Questions and Notes

1. The Wikipedia pages on these people really need work.

Bibliography

• "Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore." Wikipedia. [This page has several important errors and needs to consult peerage.] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray,_7th_Earl_of_Dunmore (Accessed April 2015).
• Facey, William. "Mayfair to Makkah." Aramco World: Arab and Islamic Cultures and Connections 59:5 (September/October 2008): 18–23. Online http://www.aramcoworld.com/issue/200805/mayfair.to.makkah.htm. [This article has photographs.]
• "Lady Evelyn Cobbold." Wikipedia. [This page also really needs work, very little information here.] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zainab_Cobbold (Accessed April 2015).
• "Charles Adolphus Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore." "Person Page 1794." The Peerage: A Geneological Survey of the Peerage of England as Well as the Royal Families of Europe. Source: Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003. http://www.thepeerage.com/p1794.htm#i17937 (Accessed April 2015).