Labourer lives on through diary
James Cox might have languished unremembered in an unmarked pauper’s grave in Greytown, had he not kept a diary during his life, writes Tina White.
At the far end of Greytown Cemetery is a small headstone. It reads simply: ‘‘James Cox, 1846-1925. Itinerant.’’ pauper’s grave, for 88 years the site had no name listed at all.
Its occupant would forever have remained unknown – except for one thing. James Cox kept a diary.
Back in England, he was born to a Wiltshire farming family; in his teenage years his father died and his mother took over the running of the farm.
Working as a clerical assistant in the Swindon office of the Great Western Railway, he became a proficient bookkeeper. He never married. When, in 1880, his mother finally sold the farm, he suddenly, inexplicably, decided to emigrate to New Zealand.
Cox’s first eight years were spent in and around Christchurch. Then, at 42, unable to find a job as clerk or bookkeeper, he became a labourer – irrevocably plummeting to the bottom of the social status ladder.
One of his jobs was at Foxton, in Manawatu¯ – then a thriving centre of flax processing for the world’s hemp market. His pay there was 17 shillings and sixpence for a 56-hour working week, plus meals and board. Among his tasks was cleaning hanks of flax under running water all day, leaving him drenched and prone to respiratory infections.
It was the start of a long, gradual decline in health and circumstances, but through it all one thing never changed. Each lonely night, by the light of a candle, he wrote in his diary.
Because he didn’t have pen or ink, and there was no room in his swag for a blank book, James wrote in pencil, at least 60 words each time, on long strips of notepaper that he folded to make tiny booklets. He would do this every night for 37 years.
What did he write about? Not about his feelings, or anything about women.
Cox described the weather, his workmates, his job searches, what he saw on his walks; world and local news, including what his family wrote him in their letters, and his pitiful finances.
In 1890, he wrote: ‘‘My shoes are got very bad . . . I have only one shirt I can wear, nearly worn out so I am in an evil case and cannot get either money or goods from the firm. Most of the fellows . . . are getting doubtful if they will get their wages at all. The firm appears to be nearly bankrupt.’’
The flax boom over, the mill closed down.
Cox took to the road as an itinerant; the years passing in a blur of changing addresses and casual work. By
1918, he was 72 years old, ill and unemployable. His immediate family had died. But his diary-writing routine never varied.
At last came a stroke of luck.
A doctor organised a place for him at a men’s home in Carterton.
Normally, ‘‘homes’’ for indigent men were bleak. But this one, founded by philanthropist Charles Rooking Carter and run on humane lines by a kindly couple, was different.
It was both haven and heaven to the old man who hadn’t had a break in so long. Earlier, he’d stubbornly refused to take the country’s state pension – now he accepted it, and treated himself to a brand new suit.
Aged 79, he died on July 19,
1925 – and that might have been that.
But many years later, Miles Fairburn, senior lecturer at Wellington’s Victoria University, came across James Cox’s diary at the Alexander Turnbull Library.
It had been gathering dust since 1963. Originally posted to Cox’s English relatives after his death, they had promptly donated the diary back. Fairburn realised there was nothing like it in New Zealand history.
The result was his well-researched 1995 book Nearly Out Of Heart And Hope, quoting a written comment by Cox.
‘‘Cox was a man of no historical importance,’’ Fairburn wrote. ‘‘He was poor, without status, and powerless. He belonged to the bottom two-thirds of society. But, paradoxically, he kept a diary. A remarkable diary.’’
Cox’s life continues to inspire sympathy.
In 2013, longtime Wairarapa historian/researcher Adele PentonyGraham paid to have Cox’s headstone installed at Greytown Cemetery. ‘‘I felt it was the least I could do for him,’’ she said.