The Concert Overture "William Cobbett" was created by making a transcription for orchestra of the Rondo for oboe and piano in 1962, the bicentenary year of Cobbett's birth (9 March 1762) at Farnham in Surrey, close to where the composer was born and grew up. Cobbett was a local figure with whose attitudes to life the composer was sympathetic. The overture received a rehearsal performance by the BBC Northern Ireland Light Orchestra in Belfast in 1969, under the auspices of the BBC's light music rehearsal scheme. The conductor was Havelock Nelson and the producer was Alan Tongue. It was on this occasion that Strutt first met and became acquainted with Derek Bell, the harpist in the orchestra, who became a lifelong friend and exponent of Strutt's works.