body Cox was the first to find hanging on the landing. He then, through a cousin named Allport, got employed in grinding colours, &c., for the scene-painter at Birmingham Theatre, and continued his studies at Barber's. Old Macready (the father of the great tragedian) was then lessee and manager, and Cox worked with an Italian scene-painter named De Maria, an artist of whose works Cox used in after years to speak with enthusiasm. Cox soon began to paint side scenes, and brought himself specially into notice by painting a portrait of an actress which was needed for the scenery of a play. Macready then appointed him his scene-painter. Always kind to children, he painted scenes for little Macready's toy theatre, which were long preserved in the family. For two or three years Cox remained with the elder Macready, travelling about with the ‘players’ to Bristol, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, and other places, sometimes taking minor parts when wanted, once appearing as a clown. When he could he still went out sketching with the Barbers. The life and manners of his stage companions were not congenial to him, and, having quarrelled with Macready, he got released from his engagement, and determined to go up to London.
He was now (1804) twenty years of age, and he accepted a proposal of Mr. Astley to paint scenes for his theatre in Lambeth. His mother came with him and settled him in lodgings with a widow named Ragg, in a road not far from Astley's Circus. Mrs. Ragg had two daughters, the eldest of whom, Mary, Cox afterwards married. Finding the scene-loft at Astley's full, and characteristically unwilling to intrude himself, he sought work elsewhere, and painted for the Surrey Theatre and for the theatre at Swansea, and (as late as 1808) for the theatre at Wolverhampton. By this time he had commenced his career as a landscape-painter in water-colours. Mr. Everitt, a dealer in drawings, &c., of Birmingham, introduced him to some friends, and his son Edward was one of his first pupils. Charles Barber and Richard Evans came up from Birmingham and sketched with him, and he sold his drawings at two guineas a dozen to Simpson of Greek Street. At this time, and for some years after, the banks of the Thames in and near London afforded materials for many of his drawings. He took lessons from John Varley, who refused to accept payment from him after the first few. In 1805 and 1806 he made sketching tours in North Wales. In 1808 Cox married Miss Ragg, who was some twelve years his senior, and removed to a cottage at the corner of Dulwich Common, where their only child David [q. v.] was born next year. Through Colonel the Hon. H. Windsor (afterwards Earl of Plymouth), Cox got some good introductions as a teacher of drawing, and was able to raise his fees from 5s. to 10s. a lesson. While living at Dulwich, Cox was drawn for the militia, and, after trying in vain to get off, he left home for a while quietly, returning when the fear of being arrested as a deserter was over. This interrupted his engagements as a drawing-master. His resources at this time appear to have been very low, and he commenced giving lessons in perspective to builders and artisans. The prices obtained by him for his drawings (1811–14) were still very small, ranging from seven shillings for a small sketch to six pounds for a large coloured drawing. In 1812 he took his wife to Hastings, and sketched with Havell [q. v.] in oils. He also went home nearly every year, and took some sketching excursions in Staffordshire and Warwickshire. He did not join the Society (now the Royal Society) of Painters in Water-colours till 1813, but before this he belonged to another society which failed. This was probably the short-lived ‘Association of Artists in Water-colours,’ started in 1808. The works of the society to which Cox belonged were, a year or two afterwards, seized by the owners of the Exhibition Gallery, and several of Cox's were sold. One of them, purchased by Mr. J. Allnutt (a view of ‘Windsor Castle’), was found in 1861, when Mr. Allnutt's collection was being prepared for sale, to have two other drawings underneath it attached to the sketching-board.
In 1813 he accepted an appointment as teacher of drawing at the Military Academy at Farnham, but this obliged him to break up his home, and after a few terms he found the duties too uncongenial to continue. In the following year he took up his residence at Hereford as drawing-master in Miss Croucher's school, at a salary of 100l. a year, with liberty to take pupils. At Hereford he remained till the close of 1826, living first in an old cottage at Lower Lyde. In the spring of 1815 he moved to George Cottage, All Saints, and at the end of 1817 to Parry's Lane; here he stayed to the end of 1824, when he moved to a house built by himself on land of his own. This property, called ‘Ashtree House,’ he then disposed of for about 1,000l. to Mr. Reynolds, a West Indian planter, who changed the name to Berbice Villa.
These years at Hereford, like all his years, were filled with hard work, and marked by gradual progress in the mastery of his art. He taught at Miss Croucher's till the end of
