George James Webb was born at "Rushmore Lodge, " Wiltshire, near Salisbury, England. His father, James Millett Webb, was a landowner with large holdings. His wife was Isabel Ann Archer, and George was their eldest child. The environment of the home was musical; the father was an amateur singer, and the mother a talented musician who gave her son music lessons before he was seven years of age.
At a boarding school in Salisbury he studied music with Alexander Lucas, and learned to play the violin and piano. He subsequently decided to make music his profession and studied in Falmouth with an organist of that city.
He determined to emigrate to America and booked passage for New York, but was persuaded to change his destination by the captain of a ship sailing for Boston. He landed in Boston in 1830, and within a few weeks he was appointed organist of the Old South Church. He soon became associated with Lowell Mason in his educational projects, and was placed in charge of the secular music of the newly organized Boston Academy of Music. He organized an orchestra at the Academy which gave regular concerts for fourteen years - until 1847. In the same year a Musical Fund Society was organized and Webb became conductor of its orchestra until 1852, when he resigned because of other duties, though he remained president of the society until 1855. Webb helped Mason establish a series of Normal Musical Conventions for training teachers in 1836. Attendance at these conventions grew from fourteen in the first year to a thousand in 1849. He collaborated with Mason in compiling song and hymn books - The Psaltery (1845); The National Psalmodist (1848); and Cantica Laudis (1850). Alone he compiled and edited Scripture Worship (1834); The American Glee Book (1841); and, for the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, of which he was conductor from 1833 to 1836, the Massachusetts Collection of Psalmody (1840). He removed to Orange, N. J. , about 1870, and lived there for the rest of his life. He occupied himself by giving vocal lessons in New York, and conducting summer normal courses at Binghamton, N. Y.
He was important in the development of music in Boston because he acted as the link between the pioneer efforts of J. C. Gottlieb Graupner and the future work of Carl Zerrahn with the orchestra of the Harvard Musical Association. As a composer, Webb is known principally for the hymn-tune "Webb. " This was originally composed for secular words, " 'Tis dawn, the lark is singing. " As a hymn-tune it was first used with the text beginning, "The morning light is breaking, " but came to be known almost exclusively as the music for "Stand up, stand up for Jesus. " Webb composed many songs, choral works, and a few instrumental pieces, but few of them have survived.
Quotes from others about the person
His son-in-law, William Mason, described him as "a gentleman of high culture, thoroughly educated in music. "
George F. Root termed Webb the "most refined and delightful teacher of the English glee and madrigal" he had ever known.
His wife was Caroline Elizabeth Parmella (Haven) Merriam. They had six children.
