Freeman Cobb (10 October 1830 – 24 May 1878) was an American, born in Brewster, Massachusetts, who established the Cobb & Co stagecoach company in 1853 with partners John Murray Peck, James Scanlon and John B. Lamber. The company was based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and ran American-imported Concord coaches to and from the Victorian goldfields. Cobb returned to the United States after three and a half years but associates continued operating under the name Cobb & Company. He had introduced the use of Concord coaches to Australia and built a brand so strong the companies operated it until 1924. In 1871 Cobb took his family to South Africa in 1871 to establish a Cobb & Co Ltd stagecoach service with Charles Cole, who had operated Cobb & Co coaches in New Zealand and Japan. The new company started operating between Port Elizabeth and the new diamond fields at Kimberley. Cobb died at Port Elizabeth in 1878. In popular culture Cobb was the model for "Chris Cobb", lead character of the Australian TV series Whiplash, which premiered on Channel Seven on 18 February 1961, and starred Peter Graves as Cobb. References 1830 births 1878 deaths American transportation businesspeople 19th-century Australian businesspeople 19th-century American businesspeople