#14 Rowland Cox (my maternal ggrandfather)

The ancestor that was a real mystery and challenge to be solved was my maternal great-grandfather Roland Cox.

He had died when my grandmother was only 3 and her own mother had shared very little about him.

The story was that when he returned from war he was doing some work involving painting and was overcome by the fumes and passed away.

No one knew his parents' names and they weren't listed on the military papers my grandmother had. 

His next of kin was listed as M. Cox and she was also the person to whom assigned pay is payable. She must have married a Mr. Burridge because the name changes to Mrs. W. Burridge, with the address being changed a few times.

His discharge papers weren't much help either, other than to confirm his year of birth. 

In March 1913, Rowland obtained a reference letter from Brind, Gillingham & Co Ltd where he completed an apprenticeship as a general hand. They were contractors to The University, The Corporation of Oxford, The Oxford Electric Lighting Col, and The Abingdon Corporation. They write "We have always found him honest & upright & should make a useful hand in a similar capacity."

An inspection card from the Arabic ship shows him as leaving Liverpool on March 29, 1913 and arriving (where?) on April 9, 1913.

He was in Quebec, Canada in 1915 when he enlisted in the army.

He sent a newspaper clipping home from November 12, 1916 with a note in the margin: "This is the shot where we the 18th Can. Bn had the pleasure of taking never fought & never been defeated."

From this army Christmas program, we learned that he sang "Let the great big world keep turning" at a military dinner on December 25, 1918 in Siegburg, Germany.

 

In spite of this memorabilia, we really had no idea who Roland was. Who were his parents? Did he have siblings other than "M"? Why had he come to Canada?

He married my great-grandmother, Mary Campbell Beaton, on June 18, 1920 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Unfortunately looking at Roland's marriage certificate didn't help, as the bride and groom's parents were not listed.

The 1921 Quebec census has both Roland and Mary as having arrived in Canada in 1912, which doesn't agree with the inspection card showing him as arriving in April 1913.

I searched for him frequently but couldn't turn up anything that seemed to fit. I requested a birth certificate mailed to me but found the person I had requested was not my great-grandfather. As my grandmother continued to age, I continued to try to find information about her father - wanting very badly to be able to help fill in some of the blanks for her.

I'm a librarian and one day I was sharing this challenge with a colleague. She expertly looked him up in the Drouin collection and there he was! Except his name was spelled Rowland! No wonder I hadn't been able to find him, I was only looking for "Roland" when I should have been looking for "Rowland," "Rolland," "Ronald," and other variations.

My grandmother had said that his mom's name was Matilda. I knew when I found the correct birth certificate because not only did the date and location match up, his mom's name had Matilda as the middle name. I also found a death record for Rowland's father William Charles Cox, turns out he passed away when Rowland was only 5 years old (per England & Wales, FreeBMD Death Index: 1837-1915 Record).

I was able to find his baptism information, interestingly he was already a few years old when he was baptized along with his siblings Florence and William.

Once I had the birth certificate that opened other research options. 

From the 1881 Census Returns of England and Wales I learned that Rowland had older siblings: Francis (born in 1881). His 13 year old aunt Lizzie Cox had lived with them.

Ten years later, the 1891 Census Returns of England and Wales lists Francis, age 9, Archibald, age 7, Margaret (aka Maggie?), age 5, and Christopher, 10 months. There is a Lizzie J. listed as a daughter and she is either 3 or 13.

Rowland is born the following year on February 14, 1892 and shows up in the 1911 Census Returns of England and Wales as a plumbing apprentice at age 19, while his 16 year old sister Florence was listed as being "at home," and his 14 year old brother William was an errand boy for a confectionery. His mother worked as a laundress and had married Arthur Harry Pym, a Brewer’s Drayman, 11 years earlier and taken his last name. 

I took advantage of the free research time on Ancestry around Remembrance Day and found more military info. On his attestation paper we see Maggie Cox, sister, listed as his next-of-kin. We also find his birth date and location: February 14, 1892 in Oxford England.

Rowland Cox was awarded a good conduct badge in the military on July 19, 1917. He received military medal on November 30, 1917. He was promoted to Lt Cpl on October 6, 1918. He received another Military Medal on October 28, 1919.

He sent a postcard to his sweetheart Mary Beaton in March 1918

Rowland Cox died on August 21, 1924, when he was only 32 years old, leaving behind his wife and 3 year old daughter. 

The cause of death was listed as pulmonary and related to his service duty. 

Buckingham Palace sent their condolences...

In the summer of 2018, an uncle who lives in Quebec went to the Hawthorndale cemetery on the eastern tip of the island of Montreal to look for Rowland's grave. There is no tombstone or grave marker since their records indicated that the plot had been provided by the Red Cross. It appears that this section of the cemetery was for persons of limited funds. Unfortunately family is not allowed to install a permanent marker on this unmarked grave because the plot still belongs to the Red Cross and was provided exclusively to underprivileged families after WWI. There are multiple persons (8-10?) from that era buried in that common grave. 

I still don't know why he decided to immigrate to Canada, or how he and my great-grandmother met. I don't know what kind of work he was doing in 1924 and how it contributed to his death. I don't know why my great-grandmother chose not to share anything with my grandmother that would've helped her know who her father was. There are surely relatives out there, but my grandmother passed away in March 2018 so my impetus to find them is greatly diminished.