1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cox, Sir George William

COX, SIR GEORGE WILLIAM (1827–1902), English divine and scholar, was born on the 10th of January 1827, at Benares, India, and was educated at Rugby and Trinity College, Oxford. In 1850 he was ordained, and in 1860 took a mastership at Cheltenham College, which he held for only a year. He had already contributed to the Edinburgh Review, and had published in 1850 Poems, Legendary and Historical (with E. A. Freeman), and in 1853 a Life of St Boniface. From 1861 he devoted himself entirely to literary work, chiefly in connexion with history and comparative mythology. Many of his works were avowedly popular in character, and the most important, the History of Greece, has been superseded and is now of little value. His studies in mythology were inspired by Max Müller, but his treatment of the subjects was his own. He was an extreme supporter of the solar and nebular theory as the explanation of myths. He also edited (with W. T. Brande) A Dictionary of Science, Literature and Art (1875). Sir George Cox (who succeeded to the baronetcy in 1877) was a Broad Churchman, and a prominent supporter of Bishop Colenso in 1863–1865; and five years after Colenso’s death he published (1888) his Life of the bishop. He was himself nominated to the see of Natal, but was refused consecration. In 1881 he was made vicar of Scrayingham, York, but resigned the living in 1897. In 1896 he was given a civil list pension. He died at Walmer on the 9th of February 1902.

Works.—Tales from Greek Mythology (1861); A Manual of Mythology (1867); Latin and Teutonic Christendom (1870); The Mythology of the Aryan Nations (1870, new ed., 1882); History of Greece (1874); General History of Greece (1876); History of the Establishment of British Rule in India, and An Introduction to the Science of Comparative Mythology (1881); Lives of Greek Statesmen (1885); Concise History of England (1887).