Son of an army agent, Charles Cox left Eton College and joined the Colonial Office
as a probationer (4th class) in 1829.1 From 1841 to 1851 he served as private secretary to three parliamentary under-secretaries as well as
commissioner for New Zealand Company affairs.2 In 1860 he was appointed senior clerk in charge of the Australian and Eastern Departments.3
He became chief clerk in 1872, was knighted in 1877, and retired in 1879.4 A caricature of Cox created in 1881 is part of the National Portrait Gallery.5
- 1. D. M. Young, The Colonial Office in the Early Nineteenth Century, (London: Longmans, 1961), pp.
96, 98, 126.
- 2. William C. Sargeaunt & Arthur N. Birch, The Colonial Office List for 1862, (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1862), p. 124.
- 3. William C. Sargeaunt & Arthur N. Birch, The Colonial Office List for 1862, (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1862), p. 3.
- 4. Edward Fairfield, The Colonial Office List for 1881, (London: Harrison and Sons, 1881), pp. 338-9.; The Order of St. Micheal and St. George, The Army and Navy Gazette, 2 June 1877, p. 343.
- 5. Sir Leslie Ward, Men of the Day, Vanity Fair, 2 July 1881.