John Alcock

John Alcock the younger, known as Alcock (ii) in dictionaries to distinguish him from his father, was an English organist and composer born in Plymouth. He was baptised in January 1740 and died in Walsall in March 1791, in eighteenth-century England, and he is regarded as the direct heir to his father's musical tradition.

His training took place at Lichfield Cathedral, where he sang as a chorister under his father's direction. From the age of twelve he began to deputise for him in his duties, and between 1758 and 1768 he held the posts of organist and master of the song school at Newark. In 1766 father and son travelled to Oxford: the father to obtain his doctorate in music, and the son to take his bachelor's degree, which he earned with a composition on Pope's Messiah. His last appointment was at St Matthew's Church in Walsall, in 1773, shortly after his father had inaugurated a new organ there.

His output includes sacred music, songs, cantatas and pieces of a social and instrumental character, among them a duet for two bassoons or two cellos. He also published a volume of anecdotes, The Instructive and Entertaining Companion (1779), which reflects the literary inclination he shared with his father. Probably only one copy of this book survives, although this cannot be confirmed with certainty.