Lot 1288 , The Cox family of Farningham in Kent, 1726-1865, i. Letters of administration (Prerogative Court of Canterbury) of the estate of Mary Cox of Eynsford in Kent, widow, granted to her son Henry Cox; 6 Dec 1726

The Cox family of Farningham in Kent, 1726-1865
i. Letters of administration (Prerogative Court of Canterbury) of the estate of Mary Cox of Eynsford in Kent, widow, granted to her son Henry Cox; 6 Dec 1726 ii.William Cobbett (1763-1835), political writer and farmer; letter to J[ohn] Cox esquire, White’s Ground Brewery, Bermondsey; Barn Elm Farm, 21 April 1829

Sends two bushels of his corn to be made into malt; ‘if this can be done directly it would be of great advantage to me, because I should be able to speak of it before the time for selling seed corn is past’

With an etching of William Cobbett, drawn from the life and published by Adam Buck, 17 Bentinck Street, Manchester Square, Plate 3 of Friends to a Constitutional Reform of Parliament, c1810-1816.

In 1827 Cobbett resumed large-scale farming, leasing an 80 acre farm on the south side of the Thames at Barn Elms. Here he experimented with crops of maize (which he encouraged for human consumption) as well as growing a special straw, which he hoped would allow England to rebuild its straw-plait industry and thereby provide more winter employment for country workers. The results of his experiments are duly noted in his agricultural writing of these years, most notably The Woodlands (1825), Treatise on Corn (1828), and The English Gardener (1829).

For the Black Eagle Brewery, Whites Grounds, Bermondsey, acquired between 1823 and 1829 by John Cox and sold to Day, Payne and Cox of Westerham in 1848, see London Metropolitan Archives, ACC 2305/17.

iii. Sir Henry William Joseph Cipriani (1761-1843), artist and officer of the Yeomen of the Guard; letter to Solomon Penway Cox, York Hotel, regretting his inability to visit on account of illness; Wednesday morning, 17 August 1842

Henry was the son of Giovanni Battista Cipriani (1727–1785), decorative painter and draughtsman, who decorated George III’s first state coach. In 1841, at the age of 79, Henry was enumerated in a house on Woolwich Common, living with his adopted daughter Catherine Bayles, aged 15. Living at 12 Grand Parade, Brighton, in November 1842, he made Catherine the residuary legatee of his estate, and was buried at Brighton on 22 April 1843.

An obituary of Solomon Penway Cox (1794-1850) of the Inner Temple and Farningham in Kent, antiquary and collector, appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine for March 1850, page 338.

iv. Solomon Penway Cox (1794-1850) of the Inner Temple and Farningham in Kent; marked-up catalogue of his collection of works of Medieval art, Christie and Manson, 8 July 1850

v. John Morgan Cobbett (1800-1877) MP, Skeynes, Edenbridge, Kent; letter to Mr Cox with quotations from gardening books (including his father’s The English Gardener) on the varieties of carnation, 10 April 1865

Trained as a barrister, John Morgan Cobbett was the second son of the English pamphleteer, farmer, journalist and MP William Cobbett (1863-1835). In 1851 he married Mary Fielden, the daughter of John Fielden, his father's fellow-member for Oldham.

For a Napoleon letter owned by Solomon Penway Cox, published by him in the Gentleman’s Magazine for October 1841, see Lot 1292
£250-300

Sold for £220