Walter Willson Cobbett (11 July 184722 January 1937) was an English businessman, amateur violinist and an influential patron of British chamber music from the decade before World War I until he died in 1937. He was an innovative and astute businessman with an enthusiasm for the composition and performance of chamber music. Cobbett's business successes enabled him to focus on his musical interests from about 1905.
Cobbett sponsored a series of competitions for the composition of new chamber music works by British composers and endowed the Cobbett Medal for services to chamber music. He devised and encouraged the adaptation of a short musical form called a 'phantasy'. He compiled and edited the two-volume Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music, published in 1929, a comprehensive review of the musical genre.
Biography
Early years
Walter Willson Cobbett was born on 11 July 1847 at Blackheath in south-east London. His father was a businessman "of literary and musical tastes".'Obituary: Mr. W. W. Cobbett', The Times (London), 23 January 1937, page 17.Walter Willson Cobbett (ed.) (1929), Vol. 1 (A - H), pages 283-284.
Young Walter was sent to France and Germany "as a supplement to his education", where he received private tuition. In about 1861, when he was aged fourteen, Cobbett received a Guadagnini violin from his father and he began studying the instrument with Joseph Dando, who introduced chamber music to his young student.Frank Howes and Christina Bashford (2001), 'Cobbett, Walter Willson', Grove Music Online database.Betsi Hodges (2008), page 5. Cobbett was overtaken by a "consuming enthusiasm" for the musical genre when he heard the Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim lead a quartet performing Beethoven compositions at St. James's Hall in London. Cobbett later described the experience as akin to the opening of "an enchanted world". He wrote: "From that moment onward I became a very humble devotee of this infinitely beautiful art, and so began for me the chamber music life".Walter Willson Cobbett (ed.) (1929), Vol. 1 (A - H), page 254.
Music and business
Cobbett began his business life as an underwriter employed by Lloyd's of London. He later worked in journalism, as a foreign correspondent.
By the late 1870s, Cobbett had established his own business in London selling industrial goods. Cobbett was on vacation in Sweden where he met William Fenton, a Scotsman working as the weaving manager at a Swedish textile mill. Fenton had invented a sturdy twill woven belt for driving machinery, an improvement on the leather and canvas belts then being used on machines. Cobbett recognised a business opportunity and formed a partnership with Fenton to sell and market the product in Britain. In 1879 Fenton moved with his family from Sweden to Dundee in Scotland, where he established a factory to manufacture the woven belt material, the entire output of which was sold from Cobbett's offices in London. The partnership was successful, and within four years both men moved to larger premises. In 1883 the manufacturing plant was transferred to Stanley in Perthshire. By the late 1880s Fenton's two sons became involved in the business, forming their own company.Tina Grant (editor) (2008), International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 90, Thomson Gale, pages 48-50, 65-67.'British Belting & Asbestos Limited', The Times (London), 27 June 1960, page 19.
Cobbett played chamber music regularly at home and was involved with several amateur orchestras including the Strolling Players' Orchestral Society, formed in about 1890.'The Strolling Players' Orchestral Society', The Times (London), 5 December 1890, page 10.
Walter Willson Cobbett and Ada Florence Sells were married in 1889 at Lambeth in South London.Family history records, Ancestry.com.
Scandinavia Belting
In August 1897 the businesses of the Fenton brothers and Cobbett were incorporated under the name of W. Willson Cobbett Ltd., with Cobbett as the chairman of directors. William Fenton died in 1898, after which W. Willson Cobbett Ltd. acquired his company (William Fenton & Co.). In 1901 the business moved both its production and sales facilities to Cleckheaton in West Yorkshire, which became known as the Scandinavia Mills. In 1902 Charles Treiber and George Beach formed an agency in Boston to sell Scandinavia belting imported from the United Kingdom. Treiber had emigrated to the United States several years earlier, and had formerly been in a business partnership with Eugene Bartikeit, the export director of W. Willson Cobbett Ltd. In May 1904, Treiber and Beach formed the Scandinavia Belting Co. in Boston as a subsidiary of W. Willson Cobbett Ltd. The head-office was relocated to New York as trade continued to flourish.Peter J. Buckley & Brian R. Roberts (1982), European Direct Investment in the U.S.A. Before World War I, New York: St. Martin's Press, pages 75-76.
From about 1907, having become independently wealthy, Cobbett began to focus less attention on his business in favour of his musical interests. His biographical entry in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, written when Cobbett was aged about 80, says, "it has been humorously remarked of him that he has given to commerce what time he could spare from music".H. A. Scott (H.A.S.), 'Cobbett, Walter Willson' (in) H. C. Colles (editor) (1927), Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians (3rd Edition), Volume I, New York: The Macmillan Company, pages 674-675. Cobbett himself claimed that he retired "at the age of sixty" to "devote myself to what I consider to be my life's work" as a promoter and proponent of chamber music. But despite the shift in focus when he turned 60, Cobbett continued to maintain close connections with his business interests in his later life. He remained chairman of the company until he died in 1937.
The years before World War I began a boom period for Cobbett's company. From 1908, large quantities of belting began to be ordered by Henry Ford, used as transmission linings in the Ford Motor Company's Model T motor vehicle. Over the following years the Cleckheaton factory increased production of transmission linings, eventually producing linings for other automobile manufacturers such as Morris, Austin and Vauxhall in the United Kingdom and Renault and Bugatti in France. In 1911 the name of the British parent company was changed to Scandinavia Belting Ltd. In 1912 Beach resigned from the US subsidiary and sold his shares to the parent company, by which process Scandinavia Belting Co. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Scandinavia Belting Ltd. During World War I production at Cleckheaton was primarily switched to the supply of specialist military equipment.
In 1920 Scandinavia Belting Ltd., with Cobbett chairing the board of directors, acquired a competitor, British Asbestos Co. Ltd., and expanded its production facilities. In 1923 the company expanded its manufacturing capability to the United States, establishing a belting factory in Paterson, New Jersey. In 1925 Scandinavia Belting Ltd. and British Asbestos Co. formally merged under the name British Belting & Asbestos Ltd. (BB&A Ltd.).Walter Willson Cobbett, Notable Londoners, an Illustrated Who's Who of Professional and Business Men (1922), London: London Publishing Agency, page 84; accessed 31 October 2024. By the early 1920s, Cobbett was also a director of W. F. Stanley and Co. Ltd., manufacturers of surveying and microscopic equipment.W.F. Stanley and Company Limited, Science Museum Group website; accessed 2 November 2024.
Music patronage
In 1904, Cobbett delivered a lecture titled 'The Violin Family and its Music' during the Music Loan Exhibition by the Worshipful Company of Musicians, a musicians' guild that originated in London in the medieval period. The exhibition of ancient musical instruments, rare books and manuscripts, scores and musical mementos, on loan from collectors, was held at the Fishmongers' Hall (adjacent to London Bridge) in June and July 1904.W. W. Corbett (1906), 'The Violin Family and its Music' (in) English Music (1604 to 1904), London: The Walter Scott Publishing Co. Ltd., pages 417-444.
In May 1905, Cobbett was elected a member of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. At the same meeting of his membership acceptance, he offered 50 guineas as first prize in a composition competition to be organised under the auspices of the Musicians' Company.The Cobbett Phantasy Prize - 1905, The Musicians' Company Archive website; accessed 1 November 2024. The competition was named the Cobbett Musical Competition. It was open only to "British subjects" to submit for judging a musical composition called a 'phantasy', in the form of a string quartet for two violins, a viola and a violoncello.'Fancies and Phantasies' and 'Cobbett Musical Competition', Musical News, 8 July 1905, pages 35-36. The 'phantasy' was Cobbett's modern conception of an older genre, short pieces for viols called 'fancies' or 'fantasies' from the 16th and 17th centuries by composers such as William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons.Betsi Hodges (2008), pages 2-3. Under the terms of the competition a 'phantasy' was a piece up to 12 minutes long that "may consist of different sections varying in tempi and rhythms".Simon Brackenborough (2015), 'Walter Willson Cobbett and the Chamber Music Phantasy', Corymbus website; accessed 3 November 2024. Charles Stanford later defined a 'phantasy' as "a condensation of the three or four movements of a sonata into a single movement of moderate dimensions".Betsi Hodges (2008), page 43. The competition's stated object was "to popularise the String Quartet among general audiences, and to endeavour to bring into life a new Art Form providing fresh scope for the composers of Chamber Music".
Cobbett sponsored five separate chamber music competitions between 1905 and 1919, all but one of which were restricted to British composers. Each competition entailed the composition of phantasies, or other chamber music forms, for different combinations of instruments or in a specific style. The Worshipful Company of Musicians assisted with funding for the first two competitions, after which Cobbett became the sole sponsor.Betsi Hodges (2008), page 45.
In 1905 the competition called for the composition of a phantasy for a string quartet. The panel of judges included the composer Alexander Mackenzie, Royal Academy of Music professor Alfred Gibson, and the Belgian violinist Hermann Sternberg. Sixty-seven manuscripts were received, and six prizes were awarded.Betsi Hodges (2008), pages 46-49. The winner received 50 guineas. Other prizes awarded were ten pounds for second place, a special prize, and three consolation prizes of five guineas each.Cobbett Competitions, IMSLP Petrucci Music Library website; accessed 3 November 2024. The second competition in 1907 required a phantasy composition for a piano trio (a piano, violin and cello). Sixty-seven manuscripts were received, and six prizes were awarded.Betsi Hodges (2008), pages 49-51. The third competition in 1909 differed from the first two in several ways. The competition was international, attracting 134 entries, and called for a musical composition in sonata form.Betsi Hodges (2008), pages 51-52. The competition in 1915 required a composition for a string quartet in a sonata, suite or phantasy form, with Cobbett specifying that the two violin parts be of equal importance. Forty-five works were submitted.Betsi Hodges (2008), pages 52-54.'The Encouragement of Chamber Music', The Times (London), 28 May 1915, page 11. The competition in 1917 required a musical composition for a string quartet or piano trio based on English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish folksongs.Betsi Hodges (2008), pages 54-56.