David Cox, Sen., O.W.S. (Birmingham 1783-1859)

William Hawkes Smith (1786-1840), who published the present watercolour, was a Birmingham economic and educational reformer. He may be the 'Mr Smith' of Birmingham to whom Cox sold five watercolours and 'half a dozen Sepia Drawings' in 1812 (N.N. Solly, Memoir of the Life of David Cox, 1873, p. 24). Cox and William Radclyffe had been fellow pupils of the artist Joseph Barber (1757?-1811) in Birmingham and the two younger artists remained friends.