| Notes |
--- "Salisbury and Winchester Journal", 13 Aug 1781, page 1:
Yesterday afternoon as the son of Sir Chgarles Cocks, Bart. was stepping suddenly from a small boat, to get upon one of the coal lighters, near the Horse-ferry, Westerminster, his foot slipped, and he fell into the river; and notwithstanding instant assistance from each side the Thames was procured, the body was not found for a considerable time. Every experience for the recovery of drowned persons was immediately used, but without effect. The above unfortunate youth was upon the foundation at Westminster-school.
--- "Peerage of England" Vol 8, Arthur Collins, 1812, pages 25-26:
. . . Fifth, Edward Charles, for whom an elegant monument is erected in Eastnor church, with this inscription:
Within this chancel
are interred the remains of
EDWARD CHARLES COCKS
a youth of 14 years of age,
unfortuantely drowned at Westminster school,
unfortunately for his friends,
not for himself;
for he was innocent and good,
his faults and frailties trivial;
to him, therefore, to be taken out of this world must be happiness,
Through the merits of CHRIST JESUS,
his Lord and Saviour,
of whose blessed sacrament he was partaker
the day before his death.
To his father, and his friends who knew him,
he was deservedly dear;
(at school universally beloved)
to his elder brother
he was almost every thing that could be wished.
His brother now erects to his memory
this monument,
as a sincere testimony of his love, his esteem,
and his high opinion of him.
J. Sommers Cocks.
He was third son of Sir Charles Cocks,Bart. of
Castle-ditch, and Elizabeth, daughter of Richard
Eliot, Esq. of Port Eliot, in the county of Cornwall.
His mother was delivered of two sons at one birth,
on the 23d of January 1767,
At Marseilles, in France, of whom the elder,
Charles Edward, died a few days after he
first saw the light, and was buried at that place;
the younger Edward Charles
grew as a lily in the field.
The last day of his life in this world,
was the 6th of August 1781.
Thy will, O God! be done.
--- http://emuseum.huntington.org/view/objects/asitem/People$00403270/0?t:state:flowc8069ae5-3464-4a0b-a286-74a9498b59ab
In 1781 Margaret Cocks's uncle, Lord Somers, commissioned Romney to paint a portrait of his eldest son, John Somers Cocks, on the occasion of his twentieth birthday. But the painting was subsequently altered to make it commemorate the drowning death of a younger brother which occurred two days after the last sitting. Romney represented the heir leaning on a stone pillar, holding a lock of hair in his left hand, with an envelope at his feet inscribed "Edward Charles Cocks's hair/ August 6th 1781."
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1767 - 1781 (14 years)
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