Family and Education

b. 14 Aug. 1773, 1st s. of James Cocks, banker, of London, bro. of Charles Cocks^†, 1st Baron Somers, by Martha, da. of V.-Adm. Charles Watson. educ. Christ Church, Oxf. 1791. unm. suc. fa. 1796.

Offices Held

Vol. London and Westminster light horse 1795-7, capt. Worcs. fencibles 1797, Prince of Wales’s vols. 1803-8; lt.-col. 1 Surr. militia 1813.

Biography

Cocks was an active partner in the London banking house of Biddulph and Cocks.1 His second cousin (and client) the 3rd Earl of Hardwicke brought him in for Reigate where the other seat was disposed of by Cocks’s cousin, John Somers Cocks I*, Lord Somers. The seat had been filled by members of Hardwicke’s family up to the untimely death of Viscount Royston in 1808, and in 1812, if not before, would almost certainly have been requisitioned for one of Hardwicke’s half-brothers, but for the political division in the family. Even then, Cocks had to be ready to vacate should Hardwicke’s son-in-law Viscount Pollington fail to get in for Pontefract, and Lord Somers felt constrained to write to Hardwicke:

He, I mean J.C., will ever feel himself quite as much obliged whether you should ultimately recommend Lord Pollington or himself. Indeed I must say, because I know it, that the principal anxiety my cousin has experienced on the dissolution has been that you should not think him unreasonably building future hopes on the former unsolicited marks of your friendship.2

In the House, Cocks, apparently a silent Member, followed Hardwicke’s (and Somers’s) political line. He met with the opposition to endorse Ponsonby’s leadership, 18 Jan. 1809, and on 21 Feb. was in the minority against the convention of Cintra. He was in the minority against Perceval’s resolution in mitigation of the charges against the Duke of York, 17 Mar., and voted for Ward’s motion on the conduct of the Dutch commissioners, 1 May. He opposed Perceval’s ministry on the address and Scheldt questions, 23, 26 Jan., 23 Feb. and 5 Mar. 1810, whereupon the opposition listed him among their adherents. He opposed the imprisonment of Burdett and supported the release of the radical Gale Jones, 5 and 16 Apr. 1810, but voted against parliamentary reform on 21 May. He was in opposition on the Regency, 1 and 21 Jan. 1811. It was presumably he and not Edward Charles Cocks* who voted for the Catholic petition, 31 May 1811. In the session of 1812 he voted for Morpeth’s Irish motion, 4 Feb., against the orders in council, 3 Mar., for Catholic relief, 24 Apr., and for a stronger administration, 21 May.

In the Parliament of 1812, Cocks supported Catholic relief throughout. He was in the minorities against the vice-chancellor bill and for Burdett’s motion on the Regency, 11, 23 Feb. 1813. He or possibly his colleague the Hon. John Somers Cocks II* supported Christian missions to India, 22 June and 12 July 1813. His only known vote in was for Morpeth’s motion against the Speaker, 22 Apr. He went on to vote for economy on 3 July 1815, 28 Feb., 6, 8 Mar. and 6 May 1816, opposing the renewal of the property tax in both years. He voted in the same sense in 1817 and 1818, but joined ministers in favour of the suspension of habeas corpus and the employment of informers against sedition, 23 June 1817, 5 Mar. 1818. He had voted for Charles Williams Wynn as Speaker, 2 June 1817, and in March 1818 Williams Wynn reported ‘The Cockses appear to have fixed their seat on our bench, and from their conversations with Phillimore, I should think, on principle, and à demeure’.3 Cock’s last known vote was in favour of measures to prevent bank-note forgery, 14 May 1818.

Cocks’s seat was required by Hardwicke for his half-brother in 1818, and when he resumed it five years later it was on Lord Somers’s interest. He died 16 Jan. 1854.4

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Authors: Brian Murphy / R. G. Thorne

Notes

• 1. Hilton Price, London Bankers, 39-40. Cocks’s firm subscribed £50,000 to the loyalty loan for 1797 and he himself £5,000.
• 2. Add. 35750, f. 378.
• 3. Buckingham, Regency, ii. 238.
• 4. Gent. Mag. (1854), i. 332.