Alfred William Cox (born Liverpool, England, 1857, died London, England 4 May 1919) was a racehorse owner and breeder. [1] [2]
Liverpool is a city in North West England, with an estimated population of 491,500 in 2017. Its metropolitan area is the fifth-largest in the UK, with a population of 2.24 million in 2011. The local authority is Liverpool City Council, the most populous local government district in the metropolitan county of Merseyside and the largest in the Liverpool City Region.
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north-northwest. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.
London is the capital and largest city of the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile (80 km) estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans. The City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles (2.9 km2) and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow closely its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is also an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.
He was the son of a wealthy Scottish cotton broker, Alexander Robb Cox, and Margaret Lockhart Greenshields. His father Alexander was a director and partner in the firm of Cox, McEuon which dealt in jute, flax and hemp. The family bought the Hafod Elwy Estate in North Wales in 1864 for a holiday home and the estate remained in the possession of the family until 1987. [3]
About 1877 when Alfie failed to pass into The Royal Military Academy, Woolwich he was sent off to Australia where he tried his hand at farming. In 1881 he visited his uncle Henry Cox in Birkenhead. [4] He was considered to be quite a determined person.
The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of Signals and other technical corps. RMA Woolwich was commonly known as "The Shop" because its first building was a converted workshop of the Woolwich Arsenal.
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. The population of 25 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney. The country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
In 1884, Alfie obtained a share in a mine at Broken Hill playing cards with George McCulloch. [5] Following the discovery of silver he became a wealthy man and returned to London, where he indulged his love of horse racing as an owner and breeder, running his horses under the pseudonym of Mr Fairie.
Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It is 315 m (1,033 ft) above sea level, with a hot desert climate, and an average rainfall of 235 mm (9 in). The closest major city is Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, which is more than 500 km (311 mi) to the southwest and linked via route A32.
George McCulloch was a British businessman and art collector who was the mastermind behind the formation of the Broken Hill Mining Company, a precursor of BHP Billiton. He was the son of James McCulloch, a contractor, and Isabella Robertson, a farmer's daughter. George's father died of cholera in January 1849 when George was one year old, and he was brought up by his mother, who was assisted by his uncle John Robertson, a farmer.
His horses, including Bramble, Peterhof, Lemberg, Bayardo and Gay Crusader, were listed as starters in many races between 1887 and his death in 1919. [6]
Lemberg (1907–1928) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He won seventeen times in a career that lasted from 1909 until 1911, taking major races at two, three and four years of age. Lemberg won his most important victory as a three-year-old in 1910 when he won The Derby. His career was marked by his rivalries, first with the fast and precocious Neil Gow and later with the outstanding middle-distance runner Swynford. Lemberg went on to have a successful career at stud.
Bayardo was a British bred Thoroughbred racehorse with an impressive record, both on the racecourse and at stud, where he was a leading sire.
Gay Crusader (1914–1932) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire who won a wartime version of the English Triple Crown in 1917. In a career which lasted from September 1916 and October 1917 he ran ten times and won eight races, including his last seven in succession. In addition to his three Classic wins he defeated older horses in the Newmarket Gold Cup and the Champion Stakes. Because of wartime restrictions, all of his races were at Newmarket Racecourse. After being injured in training in 1918 he was retired to stud, where his record was disappointing.
Alfie did not marry and upon his death his fortune, consisting of money and his stables of racehorses, passed to his younger brother Alexander Robb Cox.
Alfie's youngest brother Lieutenant Ernest Cox entered the army at the age of 23 in 1891 and joined the 72nd Seaforth Highlanders. He died on 11 December 1899 at the Battle of Magersfontein during the Second Boer War. [7] In 1898 Ernest had served in the Khartum expedition of the Sudan Campaign as extra Aide-de-Camp to General William Forbes Gatacre commanding the British Division. [8]
The Seaforth Highlanders was a historic line infantry regiment of the British Army, mainly associated with large areas of the northern Highlands of Scotland. The regiment existed from 1881 to 1961, and saw service in World War I and World War II, along with many numerous smaller conflicts. In 1961 the regiment was amalgamated with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders to form the Queen's Own Highlanders, which merged, in 1994, with the Gordon Highlanders to form the Highlanders. This, however, later joined the Royal Scots Borderers, the Black Watch, the Royal Highland Fusiliers and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders to create the present Royal Regiment of Scotland.
The Battle of Magersfontein was fought on 11 December 1899, at Magersfontein near Kimberley, South Africa, on the borders of the Cape Colony and the independent republic of the Orange Free State. British forces under Lieutenant General Lord Methuen were advancing north along the railway line from the Cape in order to relieve the Siege of Kimberley, but their path was blocked at Magersfontein by a Boer force that was entrenched in the surrounding hills. The British had already fought a series of battles with the Boers, most recently at Modder River, where the advance was temporarily halted.
The Second Boer War was fought between the British Empire and two Boer states, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, over the Empire's influence in South Africa. It is also known variously as the Boer War, Anglo-Boer War, or South African War. Initial Boer attacks were successful, and although British reinforcements later reversed these, the war continued for years with Boer guerrilla warfare, until harsh British counter-measures brought them to terms.
