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Prisca or Priscilla Coborn (or Coburne or Colbourne, 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 gave money to the poor and established a school for girls.

Prisca Forster was the daughter of John Forster, a minister of Bow Church, where she was baptised on 30 August 1622. On her mother's side, she was descended from bakers, and inherited land locally and in Essex from her maternal grandfather, Thomas Skorier. In 1675, she became the second wife of Thomas Coborn/Colbourne, a brewer in Bow, whose 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. Alice Coborn died at the age of fifteen and was buried on what was to have been her wedding day. After her husband's death, Prisca Coborn carried on business as a brewer; she had over 900 barrels of strong beer and over 200 barrels of small beer in her cellars in 1698. 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). In 1683, she donated a paten to Bow Church.

On her death in 1701, through the terms of her will, dated 6 May 1701, Prisca Coborn established the Coborn School for Girls in Bow. She also gave money to help the poor of Bow and Stepney in the East End of London, and bequeathed funds for an ornamental plaster ceiling in Bow Church. A ward in St Bartholomew's Hospital was named Coborn in recognition of her gifts. One of the bells in the church of St Dunstan's, Stepney was dedicated to Mrs. Prisca Coborn when cast in 1806. 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".

Locally, she is remembered by the street names Coborn Road (called Cut Throat Lane before 1800) and Coborn Street, the Coborn Arms public house, and the Coborn Centre for Adolescent Mental Health.

She is buried at Bow Church, where a memorial to her (as Prisca Coburne) opposite that of her stepdaughter records her charitable bequests.

Notes

1. ^ Cox, Jane (2013). Old East Enders: A History of the Tower Hamlets. History Press. ISBN 9780750956291. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
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.
3. ^ East End Talking
4. ^ 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.
5. ^ McNaught, Charles (12 March 1910). "Roundabout Old East London: Mistress Prisca Coborn". East London Observer. p. 7. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
6. ^ McNaught, Charles (30 November 1912). "Roundabout Old East London. Stepney and Prisca Coborn". East London Observer. p. 7. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
7. A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 1, p. 290
8. Hills, Saint Mary Stratford, Bow, p. 12.
9. Norman Moore, The History of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London: Arthur Pearson, 1918, OCLC 2624369, Volume 2, p. 854.
10. "Old East London, II. Stepney". East London Observer. 27 August 1887. p. 3. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
11. Pevsner·, Sir Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (2005). London. Volume 5. p. 616. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
12. 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.
13. "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
14. "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.
15. The Coborn Centre for Adolescent Mental Health Archived 12 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine
16. 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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