Curio

State Library of New South Wales
William Cox

William Cox

1830
ML 1379
Pencil and metal point drawing

By 1830, at the time this portrait was created, William Cox was a highly respected magistrate and pastoralist. 15 years prior, he had completed his most famous feat of building the first European-built road across the Blue Mountains, after which he was sufficiently rewarded by Governor Macquarie. Cox received 2000 acres of land, £300, and a salaried position as Commandant of Bathurst which enabled him to enlarge and improve his agricultural holdings, as well as set his family up in comfort.

ThIS portrait is one of a pair; the partner image is of Cox’s second wife Anna. Both images were produced by the convict artist Charles Rodius during his first year in Sydney. This sketch is done in pencil and metal point, a technique which used a sharp metal-tipped stylus on prepared paper to create very fine scratched lines.

In 1822, Commissioner John Thomas Bigge described William Cox as ‘one of the six best farmers in the colony.’

William Cox married twice in his life. In 1789, he married his first wife Rebecca Upjohn in England, who tragically drowned in the Hawkesbury floods in 1819. Three years later he married his second wife Anna Blatchford in Parramatta.

William Cox spent his 50th birthday in December 1814 in the Blue Mountains, working on the road.

William Cox is buried with his first wife Rebecca in the graveyard at St Matthew’s Church, Windsor.