The National Library of Wales :: Dictionary of Welsh Biography

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

COX, IDRIS (1899—1989), Communist Party activist. Cox was born at Llwydarth Cottages, Nantyffyllon, Maesteg on 15 July 1899; his father was a miner and his mother a tinplate worker. In 1900 the family moved to Cwmfelin where Idris Cox lived for the first twenty—four years of his life. He was brought up at Ebeneser Welsh Congregational Church, Garth, Maesteg, and educated at Llangynwyd National School and Garth Elementary School. He won a scholarship to grammar school, but was prevented by family circumstances from taking it up. He began work as a shoe—shop assistant at the age of thirteen, and then worked at an iron moulding foundry and a colliery lamp—room. He began employment as an assistant to a coal hewer at the Garth colliery (where his father also worked) in 1913 until an accident compelled him to return to work in the lamp—room. He was then a miner for a period of fourteen years. He began to be interested in politics and at the age of 18 he was elected to the Management Committee of Garth Miners Institute. In 1920 he became the official lodge delegate to the Maesteg district of miners and to all coal—field conferences. It was also in this year that he attended his first Marxist class. In 1921 he was elected lodge chairman and he also became involved in the Maesteg Relief Committee which organised canteens throughout the valley to feed the children during the 1921 lockout in the coal industry. Cox, having received a scholarship from the South Wales Miners' Federation, attended the Marxist Central Labour College, London, 1923—25, where he met many individuals who would later become influential within the Labour movement. He became a lodge delegate to the South Wales Miners Federation. He returned to south Wales and was appointed a temporary deputy—checkweighman in 1925. He also endured periods of unemployment during these years. Meanwhile, while a student at the Central Labour College, he had joined the Communist Party in 1924, becoming active in its ranks in the wake of the general election of that year. He became a member of the small Communist branch in Maesteg and helped them to form a branch of the National Unemployed Workers' Movement (NUWM). He also served as a tutor at the National Central Labour College. In October 1925 he got a job at Oakwood Pit. In October 1926 Cox attended his first National Congress of the Communist Party. Finding himself unemployed once more, he began to get more involved in the unemployed movement, speaking at labour exchanges and tutoring Communist educational classes.

From 1925 until 1927 Idris Cox served as an unpaid area organizer to the Communist Party Mid—Glamorgan Area, and in February 1927 he took up the position of full—time South Wales Organizer and at the Communist Party conference held at Cardiff in May 1927 he was elected district secretary. He also became vice—chairman of the Maesteg Labour Party. In 1928 he was co—opted to the National Executive of the Communist Party and later on in the same year he attended the Sixth Congress of the Communist International in Moscow. After the general election of May 1929, Harry Pollitt was chosen to take over the post of General Secretary of the party from Albert Inkpin, and Cox became secretary to the Communist Parliamentary Committee (Politburo), and also served as the party's South Wales Organizer. He also worked as a correspondent to the Workers' Weekly. During the 1930s he held the position of National Organiser in the party and spent most of his time visiting various districts around Britain. While visiting Bradford he met his future wife, Dora Roberts, who similarly had involvements in the labour movement and the Communist Party. They married in 1931.

Idris Cox acted as the Communist Party agent in the Rhondda East by—election in 1933 and the Merthyr Tydfil by—election in 1934. In 1934 he also stood in the County Council elections in south Wales for the Caerau and Nantyffyllon division in the Maesteg valley. He came a close second to the Labour candidate. He was the Communist candidate for Rhondda East in the general election of October 1951. He also served as assistant to Palme Dutt, the editor of the Daily Worker and later took over as editor of the paper himself. Idris Cox was the secretary to the Welsh Council of the Communist Party, and also secretary to the International Department of the Communist Party, 1953—70. During this time he had close relations with leaders of national liberation movements in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean and was involved in the formation of the Movement for Colonial Freedom. He was a Welsh—speaker and supported the work of the Parliament for Wales campaign in the early 1950s. Cox was the author of numerous political pamphlets and books including Socialist Ideas in Africa (1966) and The Hungry Half: a Study in the Exploitation of the ‘Third World’ (1970). He drafted an unpublished autobiography ‘Story of a Welsh Rebel’. A small group of his papers are at the National Library of Wales and the South Wales Coalfield Archive at the University of Swansea. He and his wife had two sons and one daughter. He died in 1989.

Bibliography:

ANW index ;
Etholiadau'r Ganrif / Welsh Elections 1885-1997 , Y Lolfa, 1999;
Welsh Hustings - 1885-2004 , Dinefwr Publishers Ltd, 2005;
Idris Cox, ‘‘Story of a Welsh rebel’ ’ (unpublished typescript reminiscences).

Author:

Dr John Graham Jones, Aberystwyth