FORMER States member Richard Cox has been awarded a scholarship to study in Australia. Seventy-five-year-old Richard (pictured), who stepped down from the States 14 months ago in order to pursue a course at King’s College, London, learned last month that he had won the Australian Bicentennial Award.

He will spend a term at the University of New South Wales in pursuit of a thesis on his great-great grandfather, William Cox, an Australian pioneer who built the first road across the Blue Mountains in 1814.

Richard, who now divides his time between Alderney and the UK, explained how he became interested in his ancestor’s exploits.

‘I was never much interested in the Cox family because my own father deserted my mother when I was one. However, when she died, an old magazine clipping revealed a bit about William and at my daughter’s prompting I got interested a few years ago.

‘I tried the Open University and Oxford, where I studied as a young man, but neither was interested. A professor at the Open University then introduced me to the University of New South Wales, which in turn passed me on to the Sir Robert Menzies Centre of Australian Studies at King’s College.

‘The centre took me on last April and has now granted me an award with will allow me to spend time in Australia under guidance from the University of New South Wales. With luck I’ll get a PhD in 2011.’

Richard went on to detail what he knows about William.

‘My great-great grandfather was born in Dorset in 1764. His father drowned at sea before he was born, meaning his mother wasn’t well off, though she did manage to send him to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School.

‘Rural England was appallingly impoverished in the 18th century and opportunities for educated men without money very few.

He tried farming in Wiltshire and got involved with the Wiltshire Militia.

‘By the time he had married and had children he decided to sign on as a regular in 1795 and eventually ended up in the recently formed New South Wales Corps as paymaster, sailing out to Australia in 1799 in charge of 194 Irish convicts. He was with his family and had sold the family home, so clearly he was intending to create a new life.’

William’s life in Australia didn’t run very smoothly at first, as Richard explains.

‘He went a bit too fast and bought farms, both against Army orders and with the use of regimental funds. He was declared bankrupt in 1803 and in 1807 was sent home to be tried for “malversation” of his pay and account. Although officers commonly “managed” regimental funds in those days, William was a bit of a rogue.’

Despite the judgement, William was never tried.

Said Richard: ‘It was probably due to the fact he had paid off the £7,800 he owed the Army that he was allowed to resign and run a tiny farm of 30 acres.’

It wasn’t long before William was back in favour, however.

‘After a rebellion, which he luckily missed out on, a new governor of New South Wales came in who became William’s patron. The governor made William a magistrate and in 1814 commissioned him to build the first road across the Blue Mountains – the 3,500ft ridges of which had blocked the way to opening up the interior. He made 101 miles in less than six months, with 39 convicts, who all got their freedom as a result.

‘His reputation was made. There are now Cox roads all over New South Wales.

‘He then progressed to become a major sheep farmer and deeply respectable. He was president of the Agricultural Society and director of a bank. He became very wealthy before his death in 1837.’