COX, William Thomas (1808-1877), of Spondon Hall , Derbyshire

‘A fat-faced man with rather greyish whiskers’, Cox was a significant figure in Derby’s public and political life, yet made little impact at Westminster during his brief parliamentary career.1PP 1852-53 (219-I), Derby election committee, xi. 67, evidence of Charles Bird. Born into a prominent Derbyshire family with connections to the law, the church and banking, Cox was a lead manufacturer and merchant in partnership with his brothers.2Derby Mercury, 22 Sept. 1897; D Rowe, Lead manufacturing in Britain: a history (1983), 154-56, 162; S. Bagshaw, History, gazetteer and directory of Derbyshire, with the town of Burton-upon-Trent (1846), 98. A leading local Tory, his ‘purse, his time, and his services were always at the command of his brother Conservatives’.3Derby Mercury, 21 Mar. 1877. An inquiry into the 1852 Derby election implicated him in the organised bribery of voters; he did not give evidence, though he was summoned, and along with a number of others was indicted for his role, 18 Aug. 1853. After the prosecution failed to present their case, however, the charges were dismissed by the Court of the Queen’s Bench, 9 Feb. 1854. It was later alleged by the prosecution solicitor and leading Liberal election agent James Coppock that the case, which would have been difficult to prove, had been abandoned after the prosecution agreed to accept £1,000 for costs from Cox and the other defendants.4PP 1852-53, Derby election, xi. 145-46; The Times, 19 Aug. 1853, 19 Sept. 1853, 28 Jan. 1854, 10 Feb. 1854, 7 Mar. 1854.

First elected as a Conservative town councillor in 1851, Cox held a succession of local offices in the early 1860s. He was sheriff and then high sheriff of the county in 1860 and 1861, served as mayor of Derby in the same period, and as an alderman thereafter. He was appointed a magistrate in 1862 and Justice of the Peace a year later.5Derby Mercury, 5 Nov. 1851, 6 Feb. 1861, 21 Mar. 1877. Cox also held numerous charitable, public and commercial positions in the town and county. He was a Trustee of Derby Arboretum and Derby Grammar School, a Director of Derby Gas Company, a Director and Deputy Chairman of Derby and Derbyshire Bank, a Vice-President of the Mechanics’ Institute, and President of the Derby Chamber of Commerce in 1866.6Ibid., 21 Mar. 1877, 28 Mar. 1877. A prize breeder of longhorn cattle, Cox was also a leading figure in the Derbyshire Agricultural Society.7Ibid., 30 Nov. 1859, 3 Oct. 1860.

At the 1865 general election he stood as a Conservative for Derby, where divisions among his opponents and the entry of a third Liberal assisted his return in first place, ahead of a popular rival. During the campaign and afterwards, he cited his support for moderate pragmatic reform, saying that he would ‘vote for such measures as I think are good and useful for my country and for my native town, whether they be brought forward by Whig, Tory, or Radical’.8Ibid., 12 July 1865, 20 Dec. 1865. In Parliament, however, Cox described himself as a ‘Conservative’ and followed the party line. He divided against Gladstone and Russell’s 1866 reform bill and closely followed Disraeli in his votes on the 1867 representation of the people bill.9House of Commons Division Lists, 1866 Session, division no. 37, 27 Apr. 1866. On the rare occasion that he dissented from his Commons chief, in supporting Robert Lowe’s amendment to introduce cumulative voting in three-member constituencies, 4 July, Cox promptly reversed his vote when Lowe proposed the measure again the following day.10Ibid., division nos. 123, 124, 4 & 5 July 1867. Cumulative voting would have enabled electors in three-member constituencies to cast more than one of their three votes for a single candidate, which was conceived as a measure to protect minority representation. An undistinguished parliamentarian, he did not sit on any committees and is not known to have spoken in debate. In December 1866 the local Conservative paper made excuses for his absence from forty-nine out of eighty divisions since his election.11Derby Mercury, 19 Dec. 1866.

Cox’s election in 1865 had depended upon a fortuitous set of circumstances, and it was no surprise when the Liberals, who were now united and strongly backed by newly enfranchised railway workers, recaptured both Derby seats in 1868, relegating Cox to third place.12G. Revill, ‘Liberalism and paternalism: politics and corporate culture in “Railway Derby”, 1865-75’, Social History, 24:2 (1999), 196-214 (at 197, 200-201, 203-05). Cox unsuccessfully contested Derby again in 1874. He died three years later and was succeeded by his eldest son, William Thomas Edward Cox, a Conservative county councillor for Derbyshire from 1892 until his death in 1899.13Derby Mercury, 2 Mar. 1892, 25 Oct. 1899.