Edward William Cox

Cox was born in Taunton, the son of William Cox, a manufacturer and Harriet, daughter of William Upcott of Exeter. He became a solicitor in Taunton, and in 1836 established a local newspaper there, the Somerset County Gazette. He was called to the bar in 1843, joined the Western Circuit, and sold the title.

Cox married twice. His first wife, Sophia, was the daughter of William Harris of the Royal Artillery, and they married in 1836. On 15 August 1844 he married Rosalinda Fonblanque, the only daughter of John Samuel Martin Fonblanque, a Commissioner in Bankruptcy, at

Christ Church, Marylebone. They had seven children. By his first marriage he was the father of Irwin E. B. Cox and a daughter known as the novelist Mrs H. Bennett Edwards (1844–1936). Irwin Cox carried on his father's business interests, his acquisition of land and his preservation of game on the Mill Hill estate until his death in 1922 when the estate was broken up.

A lifelong Conservative, he unsuccessfully contested Tewkesbury in 1854 and Taunton in 1866. He did get elected in his native town in 1868 but was later unseated on petition next year by Henry James; James successfully brought a bribery petition. Cox was a Deputy Lieutenant and JP for Middlesex, and a JP for Westminster.

Cox moved to London to pursue his career as a barrister. His periodicals, reports and textbooks led to him being raised to the dignity of serjeant at law in 1868 – rather than his modest practice as a lawyer.

He held various significant legal appointments – Recorder of Helston and Falmouth 1857–1868 which he resigned when gaining the more important appointment as Recorder of Portsmouth. In 1870 he became Deputy Assistant Judge of the Middlesex Sessions, a position he continued to discharge until his death.