Henry Octavius ​​Coxe

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Henry Octavius ​​Coxe

Henry Octavius ​​Coxe (born September 20, 1811 in Bucklebury , Berkshire , † July 8, 1881 in Oxford ) was a British librarian and scholar.

Life

Henry Octavius ​​Coxe was the eighth son of Pastor Richard Coxe and Susan Smith. He received his education at Westminster School in London and Worcester College in Oxford. He graduated in 1833, accepted a post in the manuscript department of the British Museum , and soon after entered the clergy. In 1838 he got a job as a sub-librarian at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The following year he married Charlotte Esther, daughter of General Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner , with whom he had five children, only two of whom survived. He worked until the end of his life at the Bodleian Library, in 1860 he succeeded Bulkeley Bandinel (1781–1861) as chief librarian ( Bodley's Librarian ).

A skilled paleographer , Coxe traveled to the Levant in 1857 on behalf of the British government to examine the monastery libraries there. He tracked down several valuable manuscripts in Cairo , Jerusalem and Patmos , but the monks who were in possession of these manuscripts did not allow them to be bought. A fever forced Coxe to return home before he could visit Athos . Nevertheless, the results of his research were presentable and appeared in an official report ( Report to HM Government on the Greek Manuscripts yet remaining in libraries of the Levant , 1858). An important result of his travels was the discovery of the forgeries of Konstantinos Simonides .

Coxe was also an active and hard-working clergyman. For the last 25 years of his life he held a benefice at Wytham , Berkshire, and was appointed minister to the University Church of Oxford for 1842 and minister to the Royal Court Church at Whitehall for 1868. Honorary member of Worchester College and Corpus Christi College (Oxford) , Coxe held the positions of curator of the University Galleries in Oxford and one of the delegates of the Clarendon Press .

As a writer, Coxe made known the publication of Roger von Wendover's Chronica sive flores historiarum (5 vols., London 1841-44) for the English Historical Society, as well as of The Black Prince , an historical poem, written in French by Chandos Herald, with a translation and notes (London 1842) and by John Gowers ' Vox Clamantis for the Roxburghe Club (London 1850). He was also co-editor of the Calendar of the Clarendon state papers (1873) and the Calendar of charters and rolls preserved in the Bodleian Library (1878).

Under Coxe 'direction, the catalog of the Bodleian Library with more than 720 volumes was completed in the period from 1859-80; and he also wrote valuable catalogs of manuscript collections from various Oxford colleges:

  • Catalogus codicum mss. qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur (2 vols., Oxford 1852)
  • Catalogus codicum mss. qui in bibliotheca Bodleiana adservantur. Pars 1: Codices graeci (Oxford 1853); Pars 2: Codices Laudiani (Oxford 1853); Pars 3: Codices graeci et latini canonici (Oxford 1854).

During the last years of his life, Coxe accompanied his daughter Susan Esther (1842-1894), wife of John Wordsworth , later Bishop of Salisbury , on several visits to Italy . During these trips he already suffered from a painful illness from which he died on July 8, 1881 at the age of 69 in Oxford after seven years of suffering.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Coxe, Henry Octavius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British librarian and scholar
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH Bucklebury , Berkshire
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 1881
Place of death Oxford