Manchester College Oxford Chapel Society

Profile

It seems right to combine the profiles of George and Gwen Cox, if only to draw attention to their long and successful marriage of 63 years. But it is no easy task to fit a combined total of 184 years of life into a couple of pages. What follows is based on a taped joint interview conducted at their home, including a splendid lunch provided by Gwen.

George Cox was born in 1916 and grew up in Waltham Forest, near what is now the William Morris Museum. A major influence in his life was his grammar-school headmaster, who was a pacifist. And a formative event in his early years was the award of a prize (personally presented to him by Sir Antony Eden) for an essay on Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, ‘Locksley Hall’. George can still quote extracts from the poem by heart:

For I dipt in to the future far as human eye could see;

Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be....

Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer and the battle-flags were furl’d

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

As a young man, George signed the absolutist peace pledge. In 1939 he went before a tribunal to argue for exemption from military service on grounds of conscience, backed by his headmaster and others who testified that George had consistently argued against war from an early age. He was unanimously granted unconditional exemption. (1)

At the age of 17 George took the competitive examination for the clerical grade of the Civil Service and was admitted. He continued to study physics and mathematics at night and eventually took a London University Diploma in Criminology at King’s College; his dissertation was about people who commit crimes but escape prosecution.

Music was very important to George. One of his earliest memories was being taken by his mother to hear Beniamino Gigli sing at the Royal Albert Hall. At the age of 19 he attended the Guildhall School of Music part-time to study Voice. He learned to control what would become a solo first tenor voice that could reach, he assured me, the high B flat of ‘Nessun Dorma’! He sang with Welsh choirs in Wales and eventually with the London Welsh Choir – which, of course, required singing in Welsh.

George caught his first glimpse of Gwen on a train in Swansea, where he was working for Customs and Excise. His friend said, “Here’s teacher carrying her violin”. George said it was because he had a good gramophone that they were introduced. An invitation to his house to listen to records led to more serious developments; they were married in 1944 and moved to Cardiff.

At the early stages of George’s civil service career, he was in a peripatetic role with no permanent base. In 1960 he was transferred to Plymouth, where he first encountered Unitarianism. On a wet Sunday morning he went out to buy a newspaper, saw a Unitarian church, and decided to go in. He sat in the back, heard the minister preach, and thought “Damned good stuff!”. The minister turned out to be Tony Cross. This led to George getting involved with the Unitarian church, and he helped to found a hostel for ex-prisoners.

George kept rising up the Customs and Excise ladder and six years before retirement was promoted to the rank of Collector, which meant a posting to the headquarters in London. He and Gwen moved to live in Sevenoaks, where they remained for 28 years. They attended Bessels Green Unitarian Church in Sevenoaks and appreciated the services conducted by Revd Richard Boeke and later by Revd David Usher. In 1998 they moved to their present home in Drayton, Oxfordshire, and it was then that they became members of the MCO Chapel Society.

Upon retirement in 1976, a whole new life began for George. He was appointed Secretary of the Social Responsibility Department of the Unitarian General Assembly. He contributed a number of articles to the Bulletin of the Department of Social Responsibility, urging Unitarians to extend their networks of social responsibility. George and Gwen visited a number of communist countries in Eastern Europe in order to make contact with Unitarians, to which George attached great importance. They visited Romania (1978), Budapest (1981 and 1983), Prague (1982), Moscow (1983), and finally Sofia (1984). George and Gwen represented Unitarians at the International Association of Religious Freedom (IARF), the Christian Peace Conference, and the World Congress of Faiths. Another major commitment has been to world disarmament; George is still Vice President of the World Disarmament Campaign, and tributes have been paid to his contribution. (2)

Gwenllian Foxall was born in 1914, two years before George. She was the second eldest of four children and became the first in the family to study at University. Since then she has had strong feelings about the importance of education for young women, ‘so that they can contribute and not just get pregnant’. A great influence in her early life was her uncle, Daniel Frederick Griffiths, a school teacher and a conscientious objector in World War I. “Griffiths” means great or strong of faith,” says Gwen, “but teaching was not his real vocation, for Dan was a political evangelist and he was at his best on the rostrum.” Uncle Dan stressed the importance of education. He was very proud of the fact that in some streets in Llanelli there was a graduate in every other house. Gwen quotes him as saying “Wales exports teachers and preachers”.

In 1925, when she was eleven, Gwen took the competitive exam for grammar school entrance. Besides arithmetic there was a choice of essays; she chose ‘What Life Will Be Like in 2000’ in preference to ‘A Day in the Life of a Penny’. Uncle Dan, the schoolmaster, thought it a bad choice and was very surprised when she came top of the town with her overall marks and second in the county. On the basis of this she won a scholarship to grammar school, which set her on the road to university. She was awarded a degree in mathematics and physics, as well as an honours degree in chemistry at the University of Wales in Cardiff. Astronomy also interested her. One of her earliest memories is of watching a total eclipse of the sun at the age of 12: “I stood transfixed, watching the aurora, tongues of fire darting out from around the sun, which was blackened.”

After graduation from the University of Wales Gwen continued her education, obtaining a teaching qualification, the equivalent of a Post Graduate Certificate in Education, specialising in physical education and music. (She enjoyed athletics and was involved in a friendly rivalry at her school in the high-jump competition. She kept in practice by occasionally vaulting gates on country walks. George recalls that on these occasions he had to climb over the stile, while Gwen vaulted.)

Gwen taught physics and chemistry in Swansea, in Ashford, and at the Lady Eleanor Holles School in Sevenoaks. Gwen’s interest in science has always been and continues to be strong. Marie Curie was an early influence on her life, not only for her research into radiation, but also because “She carried on when her husband died”. Gwen remembers hearing about the splitting of the atom in the year that she graduated, and she has to this day retained an interest in the many uses of nuclear energy.

As a young girl, Gwen studied the violin and got the highest marks in her district for one exam of the College of Violinists. She was invited to go to Westminster Hall to claim her prize, which she still treasures: an illustrated book entitled Nicolo Paganini, his Life and Work, by Stephen Stratton. One of Gwen’s earliest musical memories is hearing the first crystal-set transmission of a cello playing ‘In a Sussex Garden’. In Swansea she belonged to the Brangwyn Orchestra, and when she and George moved to Kent she joined the Sevenoaks Philharmonic Orchestra. She was also very active in the Labour Party in Sevenoaks and worked at a Saturday Club for children with learning disabilities. She also acted as local secretary of the British Association of University Women.

Gwen accompanied George on his trips to Eastern Europe and also attended the IARF Conference in The Hague in April 1982. There is a picture of her there, dressed in traditional Welsh costume. At the conference she attended the wedding of Revd Steve Dick and his Dutch wife Jenicka.

Gwen is still forthright in her concerns about education and current affairs. She took the trouble of writing Prime Minister Blair a five-page memorandum about these concerns – and actually received a reply! An emphasis on education and work in the caring professions features also in the lives of Angela and Rosemary, the Coxes’ daughters. Angela is a graduate primary-school teacher with an interest in special needs; Rosemary has worked in many aspects of social work and has recently been awarded a doctorate for research into social policy. Gwen and George have four grandchildren and one great-grandchild, Freddie, named after Uncle Daniel Frederick Griffiths. Sadly, Sammy, one very special grandchild, died.

George and Gwen still share their love of music and often stay behind in Oxford after Sunday service in the Chapel to attend a concert. Their musical talents live on in the next generation, who demonstrate their preferences by singing and playing the piano, violin, and viola.

I asked George and Gwen what they thought had made their marriage last so long. George mentioned their common interests in peace and music; respect for each other’s opinions; patience; complete openness; and a readiness to have a row and settle it quickly. He said, “After 63 years we are still getting to know one another.” Gwen said, “I never thought of not being together. I recognised that he was a genuinely nice person. And he is the same person as the one I married. I soon realised that life with George would be anything but dull, and I was right!” In these times when the probability of staying married to one partner, let alone staying with that partner for 63 years, is hovering at about 50 per cent, there seems much to learn from George and Gwen.

Our interview ended with Gwen showing me her Kaffir Lily in the kitchen. It was, she said proudly, the third growth. “It’s like growing older: never give up.” That seems to express the spirit of Gwen and George very well.

Bob Redpath, June 2007