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== Work ==
== Work ==


In addition to her activities with the Fabian Society, Ka lectured at [[Morley College]]and worked actively for [[women's suffrage]],{{sfn|Webb|2000|loc=p. 37}} and during the [[First World War]], Ka worked with Serbian refugees in Corsica.{{sfn|Winter|2018}}
In addition to her activities with the Fabian Society, Ka lectured at [[Morley College]]and worked actively for [[women's suffrage]],{{sfn|Webb|2000|loc=p.&nbsp;37}} and during the [[First World War]], Ka worked with Serbian refugees in Corsica.{{sfn|Winter|2018}} In Germany in 1933 she worked for the release of [[Kurt Hahn]] from the [[Nazis]], and with her husband helped him establish [[Gordonstoun School]] in 1934.<ref name=Veevers19/><ref name=Veevers80/>


== In popular culture ==
== In popular culture ==
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<ref name=Miller25>{{harvnb|Miller|2018|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6AJCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA25 pp.&nbsp;25–6]}}</ref>
<ref name=Miller25>{{harvnb|Miller|2018|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6AJCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA25 pp.&nbsp;25–6]}}</ref>
<ref name=Miller63>{{harvnb|Miller|2018|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6AJCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA63 p.&nbsp;63]}}</ref>
<ref name=Miller63>{{harvnb|Miller|2018|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6AJCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA63 p.&nbsp;63]}}</ref>

}}
<!-- Veevers & Allison -->
<ref name=Veevers19>{{harvnb|Veevers|Allison|2011|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=QxgIH022UXIC&pg=PA19 p.&nbsp;19]}}</ref>
<ref name=Veevers80>{{harvnb|Veevers|Allison|2011|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=QxgIH022UXIC&pg=PA80 p.&nbsp;80]}}</ref>}}


== Bibliography ==
== Bibliography ==
Line 123: Line 126:
* {{cite book|last=Lubenow|first=W. C.|authorlink=Bill Lubenow|title=The Cambridge Apostles, 1820-1914: Liberalism, Imagination, and Friendship in British Intellectual and Professional Life|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sy8Ym9N3tgUC|date= 1998|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-0-521-57213-2|ref=harv}}
* {{cite book|last=Lubenow|first=W. C.|authorlink=Bill Lubenow|title=The Cambridge Apostles, 1820-1914: Liberalism, Imagination, and Friendship in British Intellectual and Professional Life|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sy8Ym9N3tgUC|date= 1998|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-0-521-57213-2|ref=harv}}
* {{cite book|last=Spence|first=Richard B.|title=Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=waL9JN862yQC|year=2008|publisher=[[Feral House]]|isbn=978-1-932595-33-8|ref=harv}}
* {{cite book|last=Spence|first=Richard B.|title=Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=waL9JN862yQC|year=2008|publisher=[[Feral House]]|isbn=978-1-932595-33-8|ref=harv}}
* {{cite book|last1=Veevers|first1=Nick|last2=Allison|first2=Pete|title=Kurt Hahn|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QxgIH022UXIC|date=2011|publisher=[[Springer Science & Business Media]]|isbn=978-94-6091-469-0|ref=harv}}

;Rupert Brooke
;Rupert Brooke


Revision as of 16:59, 18 April 2018

Katherine Laird Cox
Photo of Ka Cox
Ka Cox
Born1887[1]
Kensington, London[2]
DiedMay 23, 1938 (51)[3][4]
Zennor, Cornwall
Cause of death"Heart failure"
Other names
List
    • Ka Cox
    • Miss K. laird Cox
    • Mrs. Katherine Arnold-Forster
EducationSt. Felix School, Southwold
Alma materNewnham College, Cambridge
Known forFabian Society, Artist's model, member of Bloomsbury Group
SpouseWilliam Arnold-Forster (1918–1938)
ChildrenMark Arnold-Forster (1920–1981)
Parents
  • Henry Fisher Cox
    (father) (1848–1905)[5]
  • Jane Thompson Laird
    (mother) (ca. 1852–1900)
Relatives
List
    • Margaret Anna Laird Roberts (b. 1893)
    • Hester Laird Wilson
    • John Charles Cox (uncle) (1843–1919)
Photograph of Ka Cox standing in a dress, date unknown
Ka Cox, undated
Virginia Stephen with Katherine Cox at Asham in 1912
Virginia Stephen (L) with Katherine Cox, Asham 1912

Katherine Laird ("Ka") Cox (1887–1938), daughter of a British socialist stockbroker and his wife was a Fabian and one of Rupert Brooke's lovers and a friend of Virginia Woolf, with whom she was associated in Brooke's Neo-Pagans for a while, as well as the Bloomsbury Group. Her sudden premature death in Cornwall fueled speculation of involvement in the occult.

Early life

Katherine Laird Cox, known as "Ka",[a] was the daughter of Henry Fisher Cox (1848–1905)[b] and his wife, Jane Thompson Laird (ca. 1852–1900). Cox was a wealthy stockbroker and Fabian. Ka was raised in Hook Hill, a house her father had built at Hook Heath, near Woking, Surrey in 1893.[9] Ka was the second of three daughters, her sisters being Hester Laird Cox and Margaret Anna Laird. Ka's mother, who had been in poor health, died in 1900 when she Ka only 13. Her father later remarried and had two further daughters, Winifred and Sydney, by his second wife Edith. Ka's father died suddenly on January 19, 1905, when she was 18, with an estate of ₤22,000,[3] leaving her and her sisters financially independent.[10][11] She attended St. Felix School, Southwold, "a school where girls are treated like sensible creatures", then considered a feeder school for Newnham College, Cambridge.[12] On her father's death,. her stepmother sold Hook Hill and moved into a smaller house, further down, called Hook Hill Cottage (1904), for a further ten years.[11]

Cambridge, Neo-Pagans and Bloomsbury

In 1906 she first encountered the Bloomsbury Group, attending some of Vanessa Bell's Friday Club fine arts discussions at Gordon Square.[13] She frequently posed for Duncan Grant,[14] and one of his portraits of her was submitted to Roger Fry's second Post-Impressionist exhibition in 1912.[15]

Ka was described as having a sweet nature and while not conventionally pretty, having a fresh clear-skinned appearance that was appealing. She was said to be an aesthete, wearing diaphanous clothing with Peter Pan collars, "a miracle of poise, maturity and charm", who appealed equally to women and men. She made her own clothes, and Gwen Darwin describes her "standing on the very edge of the cliff, her crimson skirt whirling in the wind, her head tied up in a blue handkerchief, and the gulls screaming below".[12][16] Other accounts describe her as the "lumpy, lovable Ka Cox, who was motherly and very sexy...a heroine who goes through reversals of fortune".[6]

Rupert Brooke

Also in 1906, Ka went up to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she read history, graduating in 1910. There, she joined the Fabian Society, which at that time admitted members from the women's colleges and was one of the few places at the university that men and women could meet on equal terms, and espoused women's rights and feminism.[17][18] She became the second treasurer of the Cambridge Fabian Society, succeeding Amber Reeves,[c] co-founder of the society in 1905, where she met Rupert Brooke (1887–1915). Brooke, who had also gone up to Cambridge (King's) to read classics in 1906, was a member of the steering committee and President 1909–1910. Brooke was also a member of the Cambridge Apostles, and after graduating in 1909 had taken up residence in nearby Grantchester, switching to English Literature and continuing his association with the university, working on a dissertation. In 1910 he had become engaged to Noël Olivier, whose family home was near Cambridge, but broke it off the following year, although continuing the relationship.

Ka became part of Brooke's circle, which also included Jacques Raverat and Gwen Darwin. Initially she formed a relationship with Raverat, who proposed a triangular marriage with Darwin, but both women rejected the idea.[12][16]

She then became involved with Brooke, made his clothes for him[d] but like many of the women in Brooke's life resisted a physical relationship, initially.[16] But eventually she yielded to him, became pregnant but had a miscarriage.[16] Noting Ka's progressive attachment to Brooke, and her refusal of Raverat, he and Darwin became engaged.[12][16] Broke wrote incessantly to Ka, who provided him with both existential passion and a calming domestic presence "When I shut my eyes and whisper your name over, I can feel your hands and face and hair above and about me" (January 26, 1912) and they travelled together conjugally in Europe in early 1912.[19]

Her involvement with Brooke placed her in a further complicated series of triangular relationships, with Brooke's simultaneous involvement with both Noël Olivier and her sister Brynhild Olivier (Bryn),[6] and Cox with Henry Lamb, who was in turn involved with Lytton Strachey. On being told about Lamb, Brooke proposed to Ka, but she refused him. The breakup between Cox and Brooke is thought to have contributed to Brooke's breakdown in 1912.[10][20][21] However Ka and Brooke continued to see each other after his breakdown, and she contemplated marriage, but both Lamb and Brooke were turning elsewhere, Brooke continuing to pursue both Noël and Bryn, but was firmly resisted. There were at least two other woman in Brooke's life at this time, Phyllis Gardner, like Gwen Darwin, an art student at the Slade, and the actress Cathleen Nesbitt.[6] After Brooke enlisted at the outbreak of World War I (August 1914) he continued to appeal to Ka's motherly side (rather than his own mother),[22] continually requesting equipment and the comforts of home[23]. Like the others, Ka continued to receive correspondence from Brooke[e] right up to his death,[19] the last letter poignantly beginning "I suppose you’re about the best I can do in the way of a widow" (March 10, 1915).[24][16]

On leaving Newnham in 1910, Ka divided her time between staying at her sister Hester's London flat in Petty France, Westminster and the family cottage in Woking (Hook Hill Cottage),[11] where Rupert Brooke was a frequent visitor.[12][25][17]

Virginia Woolf

Through Brooke's circle, Ka met Virginia Woolf (then Virginia Stephen), who was associated with the group during 1911 and 1912. The meeting took place at Bertrand Russell's house near Oxford on a weekend in January 1911, through a mutual friend, Ray Costelloe,[f] also a Newnhamite, and niece of Alys Russell, Bertrand's wife.[26] Both women had lost their parents at similar ages, and Virginia had an association with Newnham, her cousin Katharine Stephen, being Librarian, Vice-Principal and then from 1911 Principal there, and having had to chaperone the Stephen sisters on their visits to Cambridge.[27]

Virginia and Ka became friends, with Ka frequently being summoned to help when Virginia became ill. She also became a confidante and correspondent of Woolf, who bestowed on her the nickname "Bruin".[28][29] Virginia, who unlike her brothers, was deprived of a Cambridge education, was fascinated by these young women graduates. She described Ka, five years younger than her, as "a bright, intelligent, nice creature; who has, she says, very few emotions".

The Stephen sisters dubbed Brooke and his energetic outdoors circle as "Neo-Pagans", Virginia at least seeing them as a viable rural alternative to Bloomsbury.[30] The membership was drawn largely from the two societies in which men and women mixed, the Fabian Society and the Marlowe Dramatic Society (also founded by Brookes). Another unifying feature was that many of them had been to school at Bedales, a progressive co-educational institution that emphasised the outdoor life. One of the rules was comradely chastity "We don’t copulate without marriage" (Brooke), which turned out to be difficult to sustain.[16] A further connection between Woolf and Brooke was that her brother, Adrian Stephen, was among Noël Olivier's many suitors,[31] and like Rupert Brooke, her two brothers were among the Cambridge Apostles.[32] Woolfe thus created a brief connection between the two circles of Edwardian intellectuals, Bloomsbury and Neo-Pagan.[6]

Ka had planned to help share Virginia's house on Brunswick Square in 1911, but abandoned this under pressure from Brooke who was turning against the Bloomsbury Group, partly because of Ka's attraction to Virginia, describing it as a "bawdy house", appellation he shared with other Neo-Pagans.[g][34][6] In 1913 Ka found Woolf unconscious from an overdose of veronal, and her prompt intervention saved her life.[35] The two women gradually lost touch with each other after Ka married, and Virginia was rather critical of the match, which she deemed unromantic.[10][16][36]

Ka was later to become the inspiration for Mary Datchett in Woolf's Night and Day (1919).[37][38]

Marriage

After the war, Ka married William Arnold-Forster in 1918 and they moved to Cornwall, living in a large house called The Eagle’s Nest at Zennor,[h] on the coast near St Ives. Initially they rented, then purchased the house in 1921,[40] and where her husband planted a garden that was considered remarkable.[39] In 1920 she gave birth to their only son Mark Arnold-Forster.

Death

Ka died suddenly on May 23, 1938 while her husband was away and her death has been surrounded by many myths and legends, largely involving Aleister Crowley and witchcraft.[41][36] Her estate at the time of her death was ₤6,427.[3]

Work

In addition to her activities with the Fabian Society, Ka lectured at Morley Collegeand worked actively for women's suffrage,[42] and during the First World War, Ka worked with Serbian refugees in Corsica.[36] In Germany in 1933 she worked for the release of Kurt Hahn from the Nazis, and with her husband helped him establish Gordonstoun School in 1934.[43][44]

In popular culture

The circumstances of Ka's death have been the subject of a number of novels.[41]

Notes

  1. ^ Ka, pronounced Kar[6]
  2. ^ Henry Fisher Cox, born April 27, 1848, son of Rev. Edward Cox, rector of Luccombe, Somerset, born in Parwich, Derbyshire, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge.[7] Brother of the historian, Dr John Charles Cox (1843–1918)[8]
  3. ^ Amber Reeves was also H.G. Wells' mistress
  4. ^ Yeats much admired Brooke's clothes, that Ka made for him, stating he "wears the most beautiful shirts"[16][19]
  5. ^ Her letters were destroyed
  6. ^ Ray would later marry Oliver Strachey, younger brother of Lytton Strachey, while her younger sister Karin Costelloe was to marry Virginia's younger brother Adrian Stephen
  7. ^ Darwin later explained to Woolf "he tried so hard to prevent all his friends whom he considered young and innocent from being enticed into your bawdy houses at Bloomsbury" Letter April 22, 1925[33]
  8. ^ The house and area has a long history of association with the literary and artistic community. Its occupants have included Patrick Heron[39]

References

  1. ^ Census 1911.
  2. ^ Census 1901.
  3. ^ a b c Archives 2018.
  4. ^ Glendinning 2006, p. 296.
  5. ^ Geni 2017.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Annan 1987.
  7. ^ ACAD & CS867HF.
  8. ^ Abbot 2000.
  9. ^ Wakeford 2016.
  10. ^ a b c King's Cambridge 2018.
  11. ^ a b c Hook Heath 2018.
  12. ^ a b c d e Delany 2015, p. 53.
  13. ^ Lee 1999, p. 172.
  14. ^ Grant 1913.
  15. ^ Grant 1912.
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i McNicol 2016.
  17. ^ a b Delany 2015, pp. 117–118.
  18. ^ Jones 2014, p. 63.
  19. ^ a b c Miller 2018, pp. 25–6
  20. ^ Lee 1999, p. 293.
  21. ^ Gibbons 2000.
  22. ^ Schoenle 1997, p. 22.
  23. ^ Miller 2018, p. 63
  24. ^ Hale 1998, p. 283
  25. ^ Dare 2018.
  26. ^ Delany 2015, p. 130.
  27. ^ Hill-Miller 2001, p. 187.
  28. ^ Lee 1999, pp. 293–297.
  29. ^ Hale 1998, p.  62, n. 1.
  30. ^ Delany 2015, pp. 130–131.
  31. ^ Forrester & Cameron 2017, p. 518
  32. ^ Lubenow 1998, p. 240
  33. ^ Pryor 2012.
  34. ^ Lee 1999, p. 292.
  35. ^ Gordon 1984, p. 52
  36. ^ a b c Winter 2018.
  37. ^ Woolf 1919.
  38. ^ Delany 2015, p. 132.
  39. ^ a b Castle 2015.
  40. ^ CAI 2018.
  41. ^ a b Spence 2008, p.261.
  42. ^ Webb 2000, p. 37.
  43. ^ Veevers & Allison 2011, p. 19
  44. ^ Veevers & Allison 2011, p. 80

Bibliography

Books, theses and articles

  • Abbot, Maurice (Spring 2000). "A short life of J. Charles Cox" (PDF). Derbyshire Miscellany. 15 (5): 127–133. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Forrester, John; Cameron, Laura (2017). Freud in Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-86190-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Glendinning, Victoria (2006). Leonard Woolf: A Biography. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-4653-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Lubenow, W. C. (1998). The Cambridge Apostles, 1820-1914: Liberalism, Imagination, and Friendship in British Intellectual and Professional Life. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57213-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Spence, Richard B. (2008). Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult. Feral House. ISBN 978-1-932595-33-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Veevers, Nick; Allison, Pete (2011). Kurt Hahn. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-94-6091-469-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Rupert Brooke
Virginia Woolf

Websites

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