Graham Rodgers COX
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Graham Cox was born on 28 January 1895 at Mount Korong, Wedderburn, Victoria. His parents were the Reverend William and Elizabeth (née Scott) Cox. He attended Scotch from 1910 to 1912. His obituary in the 1916 The Scotch Collegian says that ‘Ned’ Cox was popular with masters and boys, although the latter ‘thought him a bit of a rough diamond when he arrived at Scotch’. It was not long, the article says, ‘before they found out his real worth as a boy.’ In 1911 he was a member of the Firsts football team when it won the premiership. He was in the First XVIII again in 1912, when he was also a Prefect. Stan Neale, who was School Captain in 1912 and an army Captain in 1916, said of Cox: ‘Ned was at school with me, and we played football in the same team, and I knew his worth – a boy in a thousand.’.
Graham was an electrician when he enlisted on 25 June 1915 at Melbourne. He served in the 15th Machine Gun Company with the rank of Private. His Regimental Number was 2567.
Graham died on 20 July 1916 at Fleurbaix (Fromelles), France. He was 21 years of age.
Service record
Graham ‘Ned’ Cox’s service file contains a letter signed by his parents on 23 June 1915 giving him permission to enlist (see below). Within a year he would be dead. He was just 5’3 ½ inches tall, which prior to June 1915 would have been insufficient to get him in: that month the minimum was lowered 4 inches to 5 feet 2 inches. He was initially made a reinforcement to the 14th Battalion, with whom he was on Gallipoli until he fell ill with fever.
His service record is unclear concerning some of his movements, but it appears that in March 1916 he transferred to the 4th Machine Gun Company and then in June to the 15th Brigade Machine Gun Company. He arrived at Marseille, France, from Egypt on 24 June 1916. He died at Fromelles, officially on 20 July, though some sources say 19 July. Captain Stan Neale of the 59th Battalion wrote later that Cox had at Neale’s suggestion joined his company of the 59th, presumably as part of a machine gun detachment. Neale said that had he not been killed his promotion would have been rapid. He said too that Ned ‘died as he would have chosen.’ Moreover, he reasoned with the mind of one who had seen too many friends killed: ‘We are here for one purpose, and some, alas! must fall.’
The Red Cross Wounded and Missing file contains two accounts by men who saw him dead. One dated 1919, from F.J. Ford, formerly of 15th Machine Gun Company said he did not know Cox well but saw him buried at Fromelles. He saw no visible marks to explain Ned’s death. One of the few things he recalled of this ‘short fair headed chap’ of about 21 years of age was ‘I heard him say he used to go to Scotch College, Melbourne’. The other eyewitness account was much more detailed, by V. Browne, a former Quartermaster Sergeant of the 15th Machine Gun Company. He said that Cox and another five machine-gunners in one party had been killed by a single shell, all with head wounds (see below). They were buried together in a large grave. They had earlier been heard singing together ‘A Perfect day’. Browne described Ned Cox as a ‘real sport and an excellent chap being very popular.’ He said he was a fine athlete and footballer, ‘educated at a Melb. Public. School’.
A letter from an Old Boy, Lance Corporal Walter Downing, appeared in the 1916 The Scotch Collegian praising Ned and several other Old Boys who had been killed in 1916 as popular and reliable men. He said that ‘Graham Cox was killed instantaneously, and was spared the pain of which we have seen so much.’ He said that he had been with ‘Ned’ a great deal in Egypt, on the transport and in the trenches.
In May 1917 Ned’s parents received a parcel of his effects. On the receipt for those effects, his father, a Presbyterian minister at Nagambie, wrote: ‘We have received the above and beg to acknowledge with deep appreciation the effort which made it possible. Our son’s effects are shell-torn but more precious to us than infinite gold.’ (see below) The package appears from other documents to have contained an identity disc, wallet, dictionary, safety razor and photos.
Graham Cox is buried in the Rue-Du-Bois Military Cemetery, Fleurbaix, France.
Photographs and Documents:
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Graham Cox is sitting at the front left in this photograph of 1912 Prefects. Others in this photograph who would be killed in the war were John Limerock (killed 1915), Collegian editor Boyd Thomson (1916), Keith Armstrong (1917) and school captain Stan Neale (1918)
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Letter from Graham Cox’s service file giving him permission to enlist. In less than a year he would be killed at Fromelles.
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Testimony from V.A. Browne in Cox’s Red Cross Wounded and Missing File.
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Receipt for Graham Cox’s effects, with a note from his father (for text see Notes above).
Sources:
- Australian War Memorial – Roll of Honour and Red Cross Wounded and Missing File
- Mishura Scotch Database
- National Archives of Australia – B2455, COX GR
- Scotch Collegian 1916
- The AIF Project - https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=65170