Catalogue description Colonial Office and other departments: Papers of Sir Christopher Cox, Educational Adviser

The papers have been arranged on a subject and territorial basis within a broadly chronological framework, although frequent overlapping of both is unavoidable. This is especially the case with files which Cox classified as confidential. These can be identified by the code names (noted as former references) Brickbat, Donkeycart, China Shop, Anthracite, Excelsior, Drawer I, Rem etc. Files of miscellaneous correspondence and numerous loose letters and papers have been grouped chronologically at the end of the collection.

Sir Christopher Cox GCMG was the educational adviser to the British government from 1940 to 1970. For most of that period he was employed in the Colonial Office (1940-1961): thereafter he worked in the Department of Technical Co-operation (1961-1964), and finally in the Ministry of Overseas Development.

Cox was an outstanding classics scholar who began his working life in 1926 as a fellow of New College, Oxford, teaching history for Greats. From January 1937 until July 1939, he served on secondment as director of education in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and titular principal of Gordon College, Khartoum. He had planned to return to New College but the advent of Malcolm MacDonald as colonial secretary in 1938 and his determination to inject new life and younger men into the Colonial Office saw Cox accept an appointment in Whitehall. However, he retained his link with New College as a supernumerary fellow until his death in July 1982.

In Whitehall, Cox headed a small team of educational advisory staff. He served in an ex-officio capacity on numerous committees including the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, the Inter-University Council, and the Advisory Committee on Colonial Colleges of Arts, Sciences, and Technology, and made a succession of long tours and short visits overseas to maintain regular contact with officials serving in the outposts of the empire.

He also played a highly influential role in the appointment of senior administrative staff in numerous colonial departments of education and in the shaping of education policy at the local level. For many years he and Miss Freda Gwilliam, his long-serving colleague, were two of the most familiar officials to teachers and educational administrators serving abroad. When they both retired in December 1970 an era of British colonial history ended.