Francis Augustus Cox

Francis Augustus Cox (1783-1853) studied at Bristol Baptist Academy and Edinburgh University (M.A.) before commencing his pastoral career. After two years as pastor of the Baptist church at Clipston, Northamptonshire (1804-1806), and two years at St. Andrew’s Street, Cambridge (1806-1808), following Robert Hall’s resignation (letter 81 denotes the beginning of Cox’s ministry at St. Andrew’s Street), Cox returned for a time to Clipston before accepting the pastorate at Mare Street in Hackney, where he remained for more than forty years. He was actively involved in Baptist affairs throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, working on the BMS committee and supporting the Baptist Home Missionary Society, helping to create the Baptist Magazine, assisting in the founding of the Baptist Irish Society, and serving as a part-time tutor at Stepney College from 1813 to 1822. He served as secretary to the General Body of Dissenting Ministers, supported the Anti-State Church Association, and, like Joseph Hughes, was instrumental in the founding of London University, becoming its first librarian. He represented the Baptist Union in 1835 on a tour of America, after which he, along with James Hoby, authored The Baptists in America. He is best known for his History of the Baptist Missionary Society, from 1792 to 1842 (2 vols; 1842). Cox was thrice chairman of the Baptist Union. See J. H. Y. Briggs, “F. A. Cox of Hackney: Nineteenth-Century Baptist Theologian, Historian, Controversialist, and Apologist,” Baptist Quarterly 38 (1999-2000), 392-411.