Cobbe, Charles (1686/7–1765), archbishop of Dublin, was born in Winchester, Hants., England, and educated there and at Trinity College, Oxford (BA 1709, MA 1712). In August 1717 he went to Ireland as chaplain to the lord lieutenant, Charles Paulet, 2nd duke of Bolton (qv) and became rector of Skrine (in the diocese of Meath) and then dean of Ardagh (22 January 1719). He was successively bishop of Killala and Achonry (nom. May 1720), of Dromore (March 1727), and of Kildare (March 1732), where he was also preceptor of Tully, Co. Kildare and (as was customary for the bishop of Kildare) dean of Christ Church, Dublin. In July 1734 he was appointed to the Irish privy council, and in 1735 he took the Dublin BD and DD degrees. As archbishop of Dublin (March 1743 till death) he combined condemnations of popery, rebellion, and Wesleyan preaching, with concern for educating the poor, supporting scholarship, and resisting penal legislation. Cobbe died 14 April 1765 at St Sepulchre's, Dublin, and was buried at Donabate, Co. Dublin, where he had built Newbridge House c.1737.
He married Dorothea, second daughter of Sir Richard Levinge (qv), speaker of the Irish house of commons in the 1692 parliament and chief justice of common pleas in Ireland; she was also widow of Sir John Rawdon of Moira. They had one son, Thomas (1733–1814), MP and colonel of militia, who married Lady Elizabeth Beresford (daughter of Marcus, 1st earl of Tyrone, and sister of George de la Poer, 1st marquis of Waterford).