Harold Cox

Harold Cox (1859 – 1 May 1936) was a Liberal MP for Preston from 1906 to 1910.

Early life

The son of Homersham Cox, a County Court judge, Cox was educated at Tonbridge School in Kent and was scholar and later fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he took a Mathematics degree in 1882. He later lectured on Political Economy for the Cambridge University Extension Society in York and Hull.

Edward Carpenter told some of Harold's story, and acknowledged his part in providing Edward with comfortable footwear:

DURING my absence in the United States, my friend Harold Cox, who had just left Cambridge, came down to Millthorpe and spent a good part of the summer there - remaining a bit after my return home. He wanted to get manual and farm and garden experience, and that same autumn he plunged into farming - took a farm at Tilford in Surrey, and inducted a little colony into it. But the land was mere sand, and the experience of one winter and spring was enough! In less than a year he gave the place up, and went out, by way of a change, to India, to the Anglo-Mohammedan College at Futtehgur. While in India he went in '85 or '86 for a tour in Cashmere, and from Cashmere he sent me a pair of Indian sandals.

Harold taught mathematics for two years in India at the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, which is now Aligarh Muslim University at Aligarh. He returned to England in 1887 to read for the Bar, and became a student of Gray's Inn. Instead of a barrister, he became a journalist.

In 1890, he married Helen Clegg, a successful accountant and auditor.