Cox, David—­On the 29th of April, 1783, this great painter—­the man whose works have made Birmingham famous in art—­was born in a humble dwelling in Heath Mill Lane, Deritend, where his father carried on the trade of a smith.  Some memorials of him we have—­in the noble gift of a number of his pictures in oil, presented to the town by the late Mr. Joseph Nettlefold; in the portrait by Mr. J. Watson Gordon, and the bust by Mr. Peter Hollins; in the two biographies of him—­both of them Birmingham works—­the earlier by Mr. Neal Solly, and the more recent one by the late Mr. William Hall; besides the memorial window put up by loving friends in the Parish Church of Harborne, where the latter part of the artist’s life was passed, and in the churchyard of which his remains were laid.  He bade his pictures and the world good-bye on the 9th of June, 1859.  A sale of some of “dear old David’s” works, in London, May, 1873, realised for the owners over L25,000, but what the artist himself originally had for them may be gathered from the instance of his “Lancaster Castle,” otherwise known as “Peace and War,” a harvest-field scene, with troops marching by, only 24in. by 18in. in size.  This picture he gave to a friend at first, but bought it back for L20, at a time when his friend wanted cash; he sold it for the same amount, and it afterwards got into the possession of Joseph Gillot, the pen maker, at the sale of whose collection “Lancaster Castle” was knocked down for L3,601 10s.  The highest price Cox ever received for a picture, and that on one single occasion only, was L100; in another case he had L95; his average prices for large pictures were rather under than over L50 a piece in his best days.  “The Sea Shore at Rhyl,” for which he received L100, has been since sold for L2,300; “The Vale of Clwyd,” for which he accepted L95, brought L2,500.  Two pictures for which he received L40 each in 1847, were sold in 1872 for L1,575 and L1,550 respectively.  Two others at L40 each have sold since for L2,300 and L2,315 5s. respectively.  His church at “Bettws-y-Coed” one of the finest of his paintings, fetched L2,500 at a sale in London, in March, 1884.  In the hall of the Royal Oak Inn, Bettws-y-Coed (David’s favourite place), there is fixed a famous signboard which Cox painted for the house in 1847, and which gave rise to considerable litigation as to its ownership being vested in the tenant or the owner, the decision being in the latter’s favour.

Cox, William Sands, F.R.S. and F.R.C.S., the son of a local surgeon, was born in 1801.  After “walking the hospitals” in London and Paris, he settled here in 1825, being appointed surgeon to the Dispensary, and in 1828, with the co-operation of the late Doctors Johnstone and Booth, and other influential friends, succeeded in organising the Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, which proved eminently successful until, by the munificent aid of the Rev. Dr. Warneford, it was converted into Queen’s