Cox,David

David Cox
English Romantic artist
born 29 April 1783 - died 7 June 1859


COX, DAVID (1783-1859), English painter, was born on the 29th of April 1783, in a small house attached to the forge of his father, a hardworking master smith, in a mean suburb of Birmingham. Turning his hand to what he could get to do, Joseph Cox, the father, was both blacksmith and whitesmith, and when the war with France began took to the making of bayonets and horse shoes, on wholesale commission, and immediately the boy David was thought able to assist he was taken from the poor elementary school in the neighbourhood, and set to the anvil. The attempt to turn the boy to this kind of labour had, however, been made too early; it was too heavy for his strength, and he was sent to what was called by the cyclops of Birmingham a toy trade, making lacquered buckles, painted lockets, tin snuff-boxes and other fancy articles. Here David very soon acquired some power of painting miniatures, and his talents might have been misdirected had his master, Fielder by name, not released him from his apprenticeship by dying by his own hand; and David found an opening as colour-grinder and scene-painters fag in the theatre then leased, with several others, by the father of Macready, the tragedian.

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