# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cox, William Sands

​COX, WILLIAM SANDS (1802–1875), surgeon, founder of Queen's College, Birmingham, was the eldest son of E. T. Cox, a well-known Birmingham surgeon (1769–1863). After education at King Edward VI's Grammar School, and at the General Hospital, Birmingham, he studied at Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospitals, London (1821–3), and the École de Médecine, Paris (1824). Having conceived the idea of establishing a school of medicine in Birmingham, on the model of his friend Grainger's in London, he visited numerous schools and hospitals on the continent and in Great Britain. On settling in Birmingham in 1825 he was appointed surgeon to the General Dispensary, and commenced to lecture on anatomy, with physiological and surgical observations, on 1 Dec. 1825, at Temple Row. In 1828, after a good deal of opposition, he, in conjunction with Drs. Johnstone, Booth, and others, founded the Birmingham School of Medicine, himself lecturing on anatomy at first and afterwards on surgery. In 1834 he took an active part in the formation of the Provincial Medical and Surgical (now the British Medical) Association. In 1836 he was elected F.R.S. In 1840–1 he founded the Queen's Hospital, Birmingham, and by his sole exertions it was opened free of debt, and he was naturally appointed senior surgeon. Having secured considerable contributions from the Rev. Dr. Warneford, he was able to enlarge the scope of the medical school to that of a college, with instruction in arts (1847) and theology (1851), and he secured for it in 1843 a royal charter by the title of Queen's College. In 1857 a sum of 1,050l. was publicly subscribed as a testimonial to Cox, which he devoted to founding scholarships and to completing the museums of Queen's College. In 1858–1859 he was principal of the college. Cox aimed at making the college the nucleus of a midland university, but unfortunately ‘he was autocratic in his mode of conducting both institutions, and as his administrative faculty was by no means equal to his creative power, and to the readiness with which he gave and obtained money, the college and hospital both became involved in a succession of serious quarrels between the founder and his associates’ (Birmingham Daily Post, 28 Dec. 1875). These greatly injured the reputation of the college; the buildings were ill-planned, and the students' rents and other expenses high. An inquiry by the charity commissioners in 1860 led to the severance of the college and hospital, after which Cox ceased to take part in the work of either. He left Birmingham in 1863, on his father's death, and lived successively at Bole Hall, near Tamworth, at Leamington, and at Kenilworth, where he died on 23 Dec. 1875.
Cox was unquestionably disinterested. He was a strong conservative and churchman, and this hindered his success in Birmingham. He was a skilful surgeon, but sacrificed much practice to his public projects.
Besides numerous articles in the ‘London Medical Gazette,’ Cox published ‘A Synopsis of the Bones, Ligaments, and Muscles, Blood-vessels, and Nerves of the Human Body,’ 1831; a translation of Maingault on amputations, 1831; a letter to J. T. Law on establishing a clinical hospital at Birmingham, 1849; ‘A Memoir on Amputation of the Thigh at the Hip Joint,’ 1845; a reprint of the charter, &c., of Queen's College, 1873; and ‘Annals of Queen's College,’ 4 vols. 1873.
Contrary to expectation, Cox left nothing to the institutions he had founded, but bequeathed 3,000l., with his medical library and instruments, to the cottage hospital at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, 12,000l. to establish and support dispensaries in several suburbs of Birmingham, 3,000l. each to build and endow a dispensary at Tamworth and Kenilworth, money to endow scholarships at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Guy's Hospital, London, besides money to complete and endow a church he had built in Birmingham.
[Birmingham Daily Post, 28 Dec. 1875, 3 Jan. 1876; Lancet, 15 April 1876, p. 586; Annals of Queen's College; Photographs of Eminent Medical Men, Barker, 1865, i. 61, reprinted in Annals of Queen's College, iv. 155–60.]
G. T. B.