Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nobbes, Robert
NOBBES, ROBERT (1652–1706?), writer on angling, son of John and Rachel Nobbes, was born at Bulwick in Northamptonshire on 21 July 1652, and baptised there on 17 Aug. (parish register). He was educated first at Uppingham school, admitted in 1668 to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1671 and M.A. in 1675. He was vicar of Apethorpe and Wood Newton in Northamptonshire as early as 1676, and as late as 1690. He was made rector of Sausthorpe in Lincolnshire on 4 Aug. 1702, and his successor was appointed on 1 June 1706.
He published ‘The Compleat Troller, or the Art of Trolling,’ London, 1682. His address ‘To the Ingenious Reader’ is in great part taken from the dedication of Robert Venables's book, ‘The Experienc'd Angler,’ London, 1662. Nobbes's book was republished in facsimile in 1790. It was reprinted in the ‘Angler's Pocket-Book,’ Norwich, 1800 (?), and again in a work with the same title, London, 1805; and in the 10th edition of Thomas Best's ‘Art of Angling,’ London, 1814. Chapters iv. to xiii. only were used by Best in the eleventh edition of his book, 1822. Nobbes's work is preceded by commendatory verses by Cambridge men, by some verses of his own, ‘On the Antiquity and Invention of Fishing, and its Praise in General,’ and by a few lines, ‘The Fisherman's Wish,’ of which he may also have been the author. In ‘Notes and Queries’ (2nd ser. iii. 288) there is an account of a manuscript volume of his, containing an article on fishing, the record of the baptisms of his children till 1701, and miscellaneous matter.
[Graduati Cantabrigienses; Blakey's Angling Literature, p. 321; information from Joseph Foster, esq., and from the Rev. H. S. Bagshaw of Wood Newton; admission registers of Sidney Sussex College, per the Master.]