Fremantle, Glendalough, WA

Fr T.J. Linane, From Abel to Zundolovich, Vol. 2: Biographies of Priests on the Australian Scene up to 1900, 1980, pp 96-97:

Cox, Charles, Most Rev., O.M.I., English, Diamond Jubilarian
From Pastor in Perth to Bishop in South Africa
The Perth Record of 25.3.1936 supplies these details:— "Charles Cox was born in Shrewsbury on 25 May 1848 ..." (Another note states he was born in Birkenhead). His father was Henry Hill Cox who became a convert in 1845 through the advocacy of Monsignor Capel. As well he was a personal friend of Cardinals Newman and Manning and the Marquis of Bute. With his conversion a number of relatives also became Catholics, notably among the Howard family descendants, who centuries before had been Catholics. His mother was a Bagnall, a sister of Provost Bagnall of Birmingham ... Charles' brother, George Bede, was Lord Abbot (or Titular Abbot) of the Benedictine Monastery at Glastonbury, one of the first Benedictine monasteries founded in Britain and the claimant to be the repository of the sacred thorn planted by Joseph of Arimathea.

While his brother chose the Benedictines to whom English Catholicism and Western Australia owe so much, Charles joined the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, after completing preliminary studies at the Catholic Academy, Lytham, and St. Francis Xavier College, Liverpool ..." (date of entry to the O.M.I.s is given in another record as 7.9.1868; time of profession and final vows 24.5.1871; and priesthood ordination 20.12.1875 at Carlow Cathedral). His first important mission was in Kilburn, London. In 1900 he was sent to Western Australia to take charge of one of the oldest parishes in the State, Fremantle. Previously the late Bishop Gibney had induced the Oblates to accept the charge of Fremantle. which was to include Cottesloe, Beaconsfield, and surrounding districts. The first priest in charge was the late Fr. Tom Ryan, one of the best loved of all the priests who have come to the West in the last fifty years ..." (Another record states that Fr. Charles Cox was made Provincial of the Anglo-Irish Oblates in 1899, and that he came as Visitor to W.A. in the same year) ... "At once he became enormously popular. He was a very tall man with a perpetual smile who never seemed to be perturbed ... a great linguist ... very benign, but at the same time very firm. Money was nothing to him, and he wouldn't have it very long before some poor person who pitched a story would receive his help ... He was a man of austerity ... He could have had any amount of conveyances including trams, to take him to Cottesloe for Sunday Mass, but chose to tramp the journey while fasting, and tramp back again ... A remarkable preacher with a resonant voice, whose bearing in the celebration of Mass was a sermon in itself ... He remained twelve years in Fremantle during which time the parish of Cottesloe was made separate ..." When Cox reached South Africa he found that the diocese of Kimberley to which he was sent and of which the Oblates had charge was in financial difficulty. In two years the recovery he brought about was so marked that the Pope made him Vicar Apostolic of the district and later Administrator of the Kimberley and the Orange Free State. In 1914 he was consecrated Bishop of Johannesburg, spending 22 years in the episcopate there. His writings include: Three volumes of Retreat Conferences for Converts, Short Readings for Religious, Daily Reflections for Devout Christians — works that point to the deep spirituality of the man ... He died at Johannesburg on 10 March 1936 in his 88th year having attained a Diamond Jubilee of priestly ministrations ... Popularity, fame, or wealth meant nothing to the priest who served West Australia and South Africa so well in transmitting the apostolic faith that his father and family discovered some ninety years before.
(Footprints, Vol. 3, No. 1)
Ref.: MDHC File, Torquay, per Perth Record (as quoted) & Fr. Don Hughes OMI, Massey, N.Z.