Walter Alfred Cox

Walter Alfred Cox (10 August 1862 – 10 November 1931) was an English etcher, engraver in mezzotint, and painter.

Although sometimes reported as having died “c. 1908”, in fact he lived on in retirement until 1931.

Life

Born at St Pancras, Middlesex, Cox was the fourth son of Thomas Henry Whitmore Cox, an art printer, and his first job after leaving school was as a clerk to a silk merchant in the City of London. In 1879 he was apprenticed to the Danish engraver Joel John Ballin [da] and worked for him in London for three years, while also attending evening classes at the West London School of Art. At the St Pancras Industrial Exhibition of 1880, he entered a crayon drawing and won a silver medal. In 1882, Ballin moved to Copenhagen, to take up appointment as Engraver-Royal to the King of Denmark, and Cox began to earn his living as an etcher working on his own. In the 1890s, he attended photogravure classes at the Regent Street Polytechnic and got a job with Graves and Fores.[1][2]

Cox gained skill as an engraver, specializing in colour mezzotints, reproducing works by contemporaries and old masters. Most of his work is portraits, but he was also an engraver of landscapes and history paintings.[3]

Private life

On 30 August 1888, at St Matthew’s Church, Oakley Square, St Pancras, Cox married Alice Smith, the daughter of John Smith, a coachmaker. Both were aged 26.[4]

In 1911, Cox and his wife were living at 34, Ennis Road, Finsbury Park, and had two unmarried daughters living with them, Elsie Alice, aged 21, and Lilian Muriel, 19. Cox was described as a Fine Art Engraver working at home on his own account.[5]

Cox was still at 34, Ennis Road, when he died on 10 November 1931. He left an estate valued at £912, and probate was granted to his widow.[6]

Notes
  1. Basil Hunnisett, Engraved on Steel: History of Picture Production Using Steel Plates (2018), p. 37
  2. The Art Journal, vol. 70 (London: George Virtue, 1908), p. 266: “Mr. W. A. Cox, born 1862, studied under M. Jean Ballin, on whose appointment as Engraver-Royal to the King of Denmark he began to work on his own account.”
  3. Walter Alfred Cox British 1862-1908 at annexgalleries.com, accessed 19 October 2020
  4. Marriages Solemnized at St Matthew’s Church, Oakley Square, No. 417, 30 August 1888, Walter Alfred Cox and Alice Smith at ancestry.co.uk, accessed 19 October 2020 (subscription required); the church was demolished in 1977, see “London nobody knows, site of St Matthews church Camden Town”
  5. 1911 United Kingdom census, 34, Ennis Road, Finsbury Park at ancestry.co.uk, accessed 19 October 2020 (subscription required)
  6. ”COX Walter Alfred of 34 Ennis Road Finsbury Park died 10 November 1931“ in Probate Calendar for England and Wales, 1931, p. 808

Further reading
  • “Cox, Walter Alfred”, in Raymond Lister, Prints and Printmaking: A Dictionary and Handbook of the Art in Nineteenth-century Britain (Methuen, 1984)
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