Name
Victor Charles Cox
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
30/12/1917
33
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Sapper
524705
Royal Engineers
Railway Operating Division
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CHATBY MEMORIAL
Egypt
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Watford Borough Roll of Honour, St Michael and All Angels Church Memorial, Watford, Not listed on the Hertfordshire Yeomanry Memorial, St Albans Cathedral
Pre War
Son of Alfred William and Amelia Margaret (nee HARRIS) COX; husband of Lily (nee TOMS) COX.
His parents married 6 December 1879 at St Dunstan’s, Stepney, London. Amelia possibly died 1916 in the Chelmsford, Essex, district aged 58.
Victor was born 1884 in Stoke next Guildford, Surrey, and baptised 20 April 1884 at St John the Evangelist, Stoke. He married 29 August 1908 at St Andrew’s, Watford; they had two children. He resided in Watford, and worked as a guard for the London and North Western Railway Company. He was in the V.A.D. Hospital, Hertford, 19 May 1917 to 3 July 1917 having his appendix removed. Lily remarried 2 August 1920 at St Mary’s, Watford, to Harry THORNE, and died 1969 in the St Alban’s, Herts. district aged 85.
On the 1891 Census, a scholar aged 7 he lived in Stoke, with his parents and five siblings. On the 1901 Census, a groom aged 17, he still lived in Stoke, with his parents and three siblings. On the 1911 Census, a motor bus conductor with the L.N.W.R. aged 27, he lived in Watford, with his wife and one child.
Wartime Service
He enlisted in Hertford 16 October 1914 in the Hertfordshire Yeomanry: aged 27, 5’10” tall, of Watford. He was formerly 2161 Herts Yeomanry and 56532 Corps of Lancers, and was entitled to the British War medal.
He was reported missing, believed drowned, in the loss of the troopship S.S. Aragon, torpedoed off-shore of Alexandria. She sailed from Marseilles on 17 December with around 2,700 troops bound for Palestine.
Additional Information
There is an In Memoriam for Ralph in the West Herts and Watford Observer dated 28 December 1918. Has a entry in the National Roll of the Great War. Recorded as COX A C in the Watford Borough Roll of Honour.
Acknowledgments
Sue Carter (Research) and Watford Museum (ROH on line via www.ourwatfordhistory.org.uk), Jonty Wild
