John Henry Cox

Cox was born as the son of a famous London merchant and manufacturer of clocks and automatons, known was “sing-songs” which were designed as bribes for Chinese mandarins who supervised trade between natives and Europeans. After his father’s death in the 1770s, he got permission from the East India Company to travel to Canton and to stay there for three years in order to sell the supplies of his father's clock and supposedly “for his health’s sake”.

However, when he arrived in East Cox joined the trade between China and India, against the interests of East India Company. He managed to avoid the expulsion in 1783, and in partnership with John Reid and Daniel Beale founded a trading company.

The publication of the journal of James Cook’s Third Voyage with practical suggestions for prosecuting a fur trade between the Northwest Coast and China, encouraged him to take part in this enterprise. Ships sent to the northwest coast of America carried a cargo of iron, knives, nails etc. that were used as barter for furs and skins. As the business progressed, Cox and his business partners established the Bengal Fur Society in Calcutta.

His business activities undermined the monopoly of the EIC and led to his expulsion from China in 1787. However, Cox continued to run a business from Canton and London.

In 1789 he took part on a voyage to the South Pacific, Hawaii, the Northwest Coast, and the eastern Aleutian Islands, where he surveyed the strait between Unalaska and Sedanka Island before sailing to China.

He did not live long enough to enjoy his fortune. He died in 1791 at the age of 41, and was buried on French Island where all foreigners who died at Canton or aboard the ships were interred.