Autograph Letter Signed ('George W. Cox') from the historian Sir George William Cox to 'Miss Cobbe' [Frances Power Cobbe] praising her for her efforts in opposing vivisection.

Author: 
Sir George Cox [Sir George William Cox] (1827-1902), classical historian, rector of Scrayingham, York [Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904), suffragist and anti-vivisectionist]
Autograph Letter Signed ('George W. Cox') from the historian Sir George William
Publication details: 
6 July 1891; Scrayingham Rectory, York.
£180.00
SKU: 10425

12mo, 3 pp. 44 lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged paper, and with the reverse of the second leaf tipped in onto a leaf removed from an autograph album, with manuscript caption reading 'Sir George Cox to Miss Cobbe | given me June 1902.' The letter itself docketed at foot of third page in a contemporary hand. Cox's hand is crabbed and difficult. He thanks her for sending 'Mr Wright's sermon', but can make little use of it: 'The historical portions I must leave on one side. There is no history in the narrative of Elijah, and no one can gain anything by dwelling on these old tales.' The rest of the letter concerns vivisection ('the battle which ye have fought so long and so resolutely'): refers to 'Sir A Clark', 'Mr Lawson Tuit', tuberculosis and 'live-cutters'. While Cox styled himself with the honorific 'Sir', the Privy Council rejected his son's claim to the baronetcy of Cox of Dunmanway after his death. Cobbe would found the the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection in 1898.