William Sands Cox

Who was William Sands Cox?

William Sands Cox was a surgeon in Birmingham, England. He founded Birmingham's first medical school in 1828 as a residential Anglican-based college in Temple Row, where a blue plaque commemorates him on the House of Fraser department store, and in Brittle Street. Cox went on to found the Queen's Hospital in Bath Row as a practical resource for his medical students.

The Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery became the Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery in 1836 and then the Queen's College in 1843 by Royal Charter. Cox's ambition was for the college to teach arts, law, engineering, architecture and general science as well as medicine, surgery and theology. However, after a major split in the organisation, the non-theological departments moved off into Mason Science College which later became the University of Birmingham leaving the name Queen's College as a theological institution.

The University of Birmingham Special Collections department holds some of Cox's personal papers.