Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol II (1901).djvu/87

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Cox
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Cox

John Ruskin [q. v. Suppl.], and in 1871 Cowper and (Sir) Thomas Dyke Acland [q. v. Suppl.] were the original trustees of Ruskin's guild of St. George.

In 1866 Cowper ceased to be first commissioner of works when the conservatives under Derby returned to power, and he was not included in Gladstone's first administration in 1868. His mother died on 11 Sept. 1869, and Cowper inherited under Palmerston's will many of his estates in Ireland and Hampshire, including Broadlands, near Romsey. By royal license, dated 17 Nov. 1869, he assumed the name Temple in addition to Cowper, and he represented South Hampshire from 1868 till his elevation to the peerage.

In the parliament of 1868 to 1874 Cowper-Temple took an important part in the debates on education. As first vice-president of the committee he had interested himself in the subject, and an address he delivered at Liverpool in October 1858 was published in the same year by the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science. After the second reading of Forster s Education Bill in 1870 Cowper-Temple put down an amendment to exclude from all rate-built schools every catechism and formulary distinctive of denominational creed. The government accepted the amendment, and it became famous as the Cowper-Temple clause. On 25 May 1880 he was, on Gladstone's recommendation, created Baron Mount Temple of Mount Temple, co. Sligo. During his later years he confined himself mainly to philanthropic activity, advocating such measures as the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1887. He died at Broadlands on 16 Oct. 1888, and was buried at Romsey on the 20th.

Mount Temple married, first, on 27 June 1843, Harriett Alicia, daughter of Daniel Gurney of North Runcton, Norfolk; she died on 28 Aug. following, and on 21 Nov. 1848 he married Georgiana, daughter of Vice-admiral John Richard Delap Tollemache. By neither wife had he any issue; the title became extinct on his death, and the property he inherited from Lord Palmerston passed to his nephew, the Right Hon. Evelyn Ashley.

[Burke's and G. E. C[okayne]'s Peerages; The Times, 17, 18, 22, and 23 Oct. 1888; Men of the Time, fed. 1887; Ann. Register, 1870, pp. 63, 66; Ashley's Life of Palmerston; Collingwood's Life of Ruskin; Hodder's Life and Work of the seventh Earl Shaftesbury, ii. 41, 79, 226, iii. 185, 188; Brit. Museum Cat.]

A. F. P.


COX, SAMUEL (1826–1893), theological writer, was born on 19 April 1826 near London, and educated at a school at Stoke Newington. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed at the London docks, where his father was employed, but on the expiration of his indentures resigned his position and entered the Stepney College to prepare himself for the baptist ministry. After passing the college course and matriculating at London University, Cox became in 1852 pastor of the baptist chapel in St. Paul's Square, Southsea. In 1854 he accepted an invitation to Ryde, Isle of Wight, where he remained till 1859. A disorder in the throat compelled him to desist from preaching, and caused him to turn his attention seriously to literature. He wrote for the 'Freeman,' the organ of the baptists, and occasionally acted as editor, and became a contributor to the 'Nonconformist,' the 'Christian Spectator,' the 'Quiver,' and other religious periodicals. In 1861 he was appointed secretary to the committee for arranging the bicentenary of the ejectment in 1662. But the throat delicacy proved less permanent than had been feared, so that in 1863 he ventured to accept a call to the pastorate of the Mansfield Road baptist chapel, Nottingham, a position he occupied successfully and happily till 1888, when failing health compelled his resignation. He then retired to Hastings, where he died on 27 March 1893. He was buried in the general cemetery at Nottingham. In 1873 he married Eliza Tebbutt of Bluntisham, Huntingdonshire.

Although Cox's ministry was effective and zealous, his chief activity was as a writer. His resumption of ministerial work in 1863 did not interfere with his literary energy, which led to his undertaking in 1875 the editorship of the 'Expositor.' The conception of this monthly magazine was evolved by Cox from his own work as a preacher and writer on the Bible. He was editor till 1884, being responsible for volumes i. to xx., some of which he wrote almost entirely himself. But he gathered round him a distinguished staff, including such men as Drs. Magee, Farrar, Marcus Dods, and Professor Robertson Smith. The influence of the magazine upon religious thought in England can hardly be over-estimated. Its general tendency is perhaps best indicated by a sentence in Cox's own exposition of his aims in the first number: 'Our sole purpose is to expound the scriptures honestly and intelligently by permitting them to explain themselves; neither thrusting upon them miracles which they do not claim or dogmas to which they lend no support, nor venturing to question the doctrines they obviously teach or the miracles which they plainly affirm.' Cox's services to learning received the re- -