Richard Cox (1756–1834)
Mayor of Oxford 1799/80, 1812/13, and 1823/4
Richard Cox was born in about 1756. (He may be the Richard Cox who was baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 1 May 1757, the son of William Cox, who appears to have been a servant of St John's College, and his wife Mary.)
In 1781 he went into partnership with Thomas Hardy as an Oxford mercer and linen-drape. He was thus compelled to buy his freedom, and was duly admitted free on 10 July that year on payment of twenty guineas and the usual fees.
On 6 October 1781 Thomas Hardy announced in Jackson's Oxford Journal that “being just returned from a long business trip to London, Manchester, &c”, he had purchased an “elegant Assortment of printed Cottons, and Fancy Goods in general” for Hardy & Cox that were also noteworthy for their “superior and striking Cheapness”.
The partnership did not last long: Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 4 October 1783 announced:
PARTNERSHIP DISSOLVED.
NOTICE is hereby given, That the Partnership between THOMAS HARDY and RICHARD COX, of this City, Mercers, &c. was this Day dissolved by mutual Consent; and that the Business will in future be carried on, as usual, at the old Shop by the said Thomas Hardy, on his separate Account, who will pay all lawful Demands, and is alone empowered to receive all Debts due on the said Partnership Account.
On 22 November 1783 Thomas Hardy inserted an advertisement which included an attack on his former partner Richard Cox, for making false representations to disparage his character.
On 1 November 1783, Cox announced that he had opened his shop near Mr Lock’s, goldsmith and that he offered a “new and elegant assortment of Mercery, Linen, Drapery, etc.” Lock was at 135 High Street, and Cox’s home and shop were next door at No. 134 (right).
A month later, on 9 December 1783 at St Martin’s Church, Richard Cox (described as being a mercer & haberdasher of All Saints parish) married Miss Mary Adams, the second daughter of Mrs Peyton of the Golden Cross in Cornmarket, and the marriage was announced in Jackson's Oxford Journal. They had seven children:
- Harriet Cox (baptised on 15 September 1784 at All Saints’ Church)
- Louisa Sarah Cox (baptised on 22 August 1785 at All Saints’ Church)
- Richard Ferdinand Cox (baptised on 1 October 1786 at All Saints’ Church)
- James Henry Cox (baptised on 22 November 1791 at All Saints’ Church:
died aged five months) - Julia Lavinia Cox (baptised on 19 August 1793 at All Saints’ Church:
died aged three months) - Mary Cox (baptised on 11 October 1795 at All Saints’ Church)
- Charles Henry Cox (born on 16 November 1797 and baptised on
14 January 1798 at All Saints’ Church).
An advertisement in April 1784 announced that Cox had just purchased widely for the spring trade, especially calicos, chintz patches, and sheeting, and that he could furnish funerals.
On 18 September 1790 it was announced in Jackson's Oxford Journal that the Oxford banking business carried on by Richard Cox, Thomas Adams, & Co. had been dissolved by mutual consent a month earlier on 17 August, and that “The business will, from henceforth be conducted by Richard Cox, John Smith, and Jonathan Patten, in a Shop lately erected, and now opened for that Purpose, at the House of Richard Cox, in the High Street, under the Firm of RICHARD COX and Co.” The British Directory of 1790 duly lists Cox & Co as bankers. The mercery business ran alongside it, and around this time Cox (described as a “linendraper haberdasher & hosier”) took on four apprentice mercers: John Badcock in 1788, Charles William Baseley in 1792, Charles Foster in 1793, and Thomas McCartney in 1794. Cox was to continue to live and work in this building for over forty years.
Cox was first admitted as one of the 24 Common Councillors in October 1787, and was immediately appointed one of the two Cloth Searchers. On 30 September 1792 he was elected City Chamberlain.
On 30 July 1794 Cox resigned his freedom, but was readmitted to it just five days later on 4 August, and was reinstated as a Chamberlain. In September 1794 he was appointed a Keykeeper. On 15 September 1794 he was elected Junior Bailiff, and in 1798 one of the Mayor’s Assistants.
On 2 February 1799 Cox described himself as a mercer, linen draper, haberdasher, and hosier when he advertised in Jackson's Oxford Journal for an apprentice.
In September 1799 Richard Cox was elected Mayor (for 1799/1800), choosing Nicholas Gunn as his Chamberlain. He had said that if ever he served the office of Mayor he would not submit to the humiliation still imposed by the University on St Scholastica’s Day, and on 10 February 1800 he kept his word. The University demanded its fine of 100 marks (£66) for this non-attendance, and Cox paid it out of his own pocket. The money was given to the Radcliffe Infirmary.
On 2 October 1804 at St George's Church at Hanover Square, his second daughter Louisa Sarah Cox (19) married William Macnamara, Esq., Captain in the Honourable East India Company's Service.
In 1807 Cox invited the brewer James Morrell and his cousin Robert Morrell (a solicitor in partnership with their cousin James Morrell) to join him in a new partnership, probably with an eye to win the brewery account away from Fletcher & Parsons and make it one of the chief assets of the bank that was to become Cox, Morrell & Co.: and indeed this duly happened in 1811.
On the mercery side, Cox had evidently gone into partnership with Thomas Robinson, as on 19 August 1809 he inserted the following notice in Jackson's Oxford Journal:
DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP
THE Partnership between RICHARD COX and THOMAS ROBINSON, of this city, Linen Drapers, Haberdashers, Hosiers, &c., and lately carried on under the firm of Cox, Robinson, and Co. having terminated by effluxion of time, Mr. Cox feels it necessary to announce the dissolution of the Partnership, and that he has ceased altogether to have any connection with the concern.
Cox’s elder surviving son Richard Ferdinand Cox became a partner of his father in the banking business.
In 1812 Cox was elected Mayor a second time (for 1812/13), and an Alderman in 1813.
On 25 May 1816 his younger son Charles Henry Cox, who had attended Westminster School, was matriculated at the University of Oxford at the age of 18 by Christ Church.
It was reported in Jackson’s Oxford Journal for 8 August 1818 that Mary Cox, the youngest daughter of Richard Cox, Esq, banker, of Oakley House, Berkshire had married at Marcham in Berkshire William Cockayne Frith, ex-Chaplain to H.M. Forces in the Ionian Islands and Fellow of St John’s College.
On 19 July 1821 Alderman Cox was one of the party from Oxford in attendance at the Coronation of George IV.
Alderman Cox appears to have gone into partnership with his last apprentice Charles Foster, as Pigot's Directory for 1823 lists the firm as Cox & Foster.
In 1823 Alderman Richard Cox was elected Mayor of Oxford a third time (for 1823/4).
Just three years later in 1826/7 his son Richard Ferdinand Cox also served as Mayor.
On 20 December 1826 at All Souls Church in Langham Place, London Cox's daughter Mrs Louisa Sarah Macnamara married her second husband John Brown Nasmyth. His son, the Revd Charles Henry Cox, who was now the Vicar of St Mary Magdalen Church in Oxford, performed the ceremony. From 1826 to 1828 Charles was deputy keeper (Hypobbliothecarius) at the Bodleian library, and was then appointed Perpetual Curate of Benson. On 17 September 1832 he was appointed one of the Lecturers at Carfax Church.
To finance their investments and purchases of land, all four partners in Cox's bank borrowed from the joint funds, and by 1830 Cox had an estate at Tubney and Blackthorn, leasehold lands at Cumnor, Botley, Binsey, and Beckley, and numerous other investments. In 1831, however, the Morrells discovered that Richard Cox, the senior partner, had borrowed about £60,000, and his son Richard Ferdinand Cox had borrowed £14,000 and that both had engaged in corrupt practices.
On 13 July 1833 a notice was published in Jackson's Oxford Journal stating that the dissolution of the partnership between Richard Cox, James Morrell, and Robert Morrell, of the City of Oxford, bankers referred only to a special partnership subsisting to 8 February 1833 and not to the subsequent and now subsisting general partnership between those parties.
By now Richard Cox was living at Tubney Warren Cottage near Abingdon. Later in 1833 he fled as a bankrupt to Calais, and on 14 September 1833 an auction of all his fine furniture and effects on those premises was advertised in Jackson's Oxford Journal. Cox described himself as being late of Tubney when he signed his will at Calais on 24 April 1834.
† Richard Cox died at Calais on 27 November 1834 at the age of 78, and at the time of his death he was still the Senior Alderman of the city of Oxford. In his will (proved on 7 January 1835) he left everything to his sons Richard Ferdinand Cox and Charles Henry Cox.
The ground floor of Cox's premises at 134 High Street was occupied by Morrell’s Bank from 1833 until 1851. At the time of the 1841 census on 6 June Sarah Cox (50),who was the wife of Richard Cox's son Richard Ferdinand Cox, lived upstairs with her daughter Louisa (25), and her brother-in-law the Revd Charles Henry Cox was also paying a visit: all were described as independent, and they looked after by two servants. They must have moved out shortly afterwards, as just over a month later on 17 July 1841 Jackson's Oxford Journal announced that all the furniture, linen, china, carpets and rugs, fire irons, kitchen requisites, and a variety of other effects would be auctioned under a bill of sale at the premises.
On 31 January 1837 at Ince in Cheshire Richard Cox's younger son Charles Henry Cox had married Elizabeth Peel, and they had at least two children. He was Rector of Oulton in Suffolk when he died at the Grotto, Basildon, Berkshire (the home of his father-in law the Revd G. H. Peel) on 1 October 1850.
See also:
- Richard Ferdinand Cox, Mayor in 1826 (Cox’s son)
- Brigid Allen, Morrells of Oxford. The Family and their Brewery 1743–1993 (Oxfordshire Books, 1994), pp. 38–9
- Malcolm Graham, Oxford City Apprentices 1697–1800, entries numbered 2865, 2952, 2986, and 3010
- Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 6 December 1834, p. 3c: Announcement of Cox’s death
- PCC PROB 11/1841 (Will of Richard Cox of Calais, France, proved 7 January 1835)
