Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Cobb, Gerard Francis
COBB, GERARD FRANCIS (1838–1904), musician, born at Nettlestead, Kent, on 15 Oct. 1838, was younger son of William Francis Cobb, rector of Nettlestead, by his wife Mary Blackburn. Educated at Marlborough College from 1849 to 1857, he matriculated in 1857 from Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won a scholarship in 1860. He graduated B.A. in 1861 with a first class both in the classical and the moral science triposes. Interested in music from an early date, Cobb thereupon went for a short time to Dresden to study music. Elected a fellow of Trinity in 1863, he proceeded M.A. next year, and was appointed junior bursar in 1869. That post, in which he showed great business capacity, he held for twenty-five years.
In sympathy with the advanced tractarian movement, Cobb at one time contemplated, but finally declined, holy orders. He actively advocated reunion between the Roman and Anglican communions, and published in 1867 an elaborate treatise, 'The Kiss of Peace, or England and Rome at one on the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist' (2nd edit. 1868). Two short tracts, 'A Few Words on Reunion' and 'Separation not Schism,' appeared in 1869. Resigning his offices at Trinity College after his marriage in 1893, Cobb continued to reside in Cambridge, and devoted himself mainly to musical composition and the encouragement of musical study, which had already engaged much of his interest. He was president of the Cambridge University Musical Society from 1874 to 1883, and as chairman of the University Board of Musical Studies from 1877 to 1892 gave Sir George Macfarren valuable help in the reform of that faculty. He was a prolific composer of songs, wrote much church music, including Psalm lxii. for the festival of the North Eastern Choir Association at Ripon Cathedral in 1892, church services, and anthems. His most ambitious work was 'A Song of Trafalgar,' ballad for chorus and orchestra, Op. 41 (1900); his most popular compositions were settings of twenty of Rudyard Kipling's 'Barrack Room Ballads,' which were collected in 1904, and songs called 'The Last Farewell,' 'Love among the Roses,' and 'A Spanish Lament.' He also published a quintet in C (Op. 22) for pianoforte and strings (1892) and a quartet (1898).
Cobb was an enthusiastic cyclist, and was first president in 1878 of the National Cyclists' Union, originally the Bicycle Union, and was president of the Cambridge University Cycling Club. For the International Health Exhibition in 1884 he contributed a chapter on 'Cycling' to the handbook on athletics, part ii. He took part in the municipal life of Cambridge, and addressed to the district council in 1878 a pamphlet on 'Road Paving,' in which he urged improvement of the roads. Cobb died at Cambridge on 31 March 1904, and was cremated at Woking. He married in 1893 Elizabeth Lucy, daughter of John Welchman Whateley, of Birmingham and widow of Stephen Parkinson [q. v.], tutor of St. John's College, Cambridge; she survived him without issue.
[The Times, 1 April 1904; Musical News, 9 April 1904 (notice by Dr. L. T. Southgate); Musical Times, May 1904; Brown and Stratton, British Musical Biog. 1897; Marlborough Coll. Reg.]