Sir Charles Cox (1660–1729) was an English brewer and Whig Member of Parliament for Southwark from 1695 to 1712. For many years afterwards the MP for Southwark would generally be a brewer.
In 1709 he began to offer German Protestant refugees from the Palatinate ("Palatines") living space in his warehouses. Soon there were nearly fourteen hundred, and the residents of Southwark gave a petition to Parliament to have them removed.[1]
When the Duke of Marlborough returned to the United Kingdom shortly after the death of Queen Anne in 1714, Sir Charles led the procession into London on 16 August [O.S. 5 August] 1714, earning him a place in a satire by Ned Ward.[2] Not long afterwards a fire in his warehouses lost him thousands of pounds.[3] He was appointed High Sheriff of Surrey for 1717–18.[4] He was ruined in the South Sea Bubble of 1720.
In 1734 the case of Lady Cox was heard and it was put on record that he had been a bigamist.[5]
References edit
- ^ Thomas Allen, Nathaniel Whittock. History of the County of Surrey. Hinton, 1831. Page 137.
- ^ Howard William Troyer. Ned Ward of Grub Street: a study of sub-literary London in the eighteenth century. Routledge, 1968. Page 104.
- ^ Petition by Sir Charles Cox to Parliament
- ^ "COX, Charles (d. 1729), of Hay's Wharf, Mill Lane, St. Olave's, Southwark, Surr". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 10 June 2013.
- ^ Reports of cases argued and determined in the High Court of Chancery: and of some special cases adjudged in the Court of King's Bench [1695-1735], Volume 3. Edited by W. P. Williams et al. J. Butterworth and Son, 1826. Page 339.