COCKS, Hon. James Somers (1790-1856), of 42 Upper Brook Street, Mdx.

By 1812 Cocks, who had already rejected the law as a profession and declined to follow his eldest brother Edward into the army, after accompanying him for part of the Peninsular campaign, had resolved to pursue a career in the church. Ibid. 182, 186-8, 205. However, this ambition was interrupted by his return for Reigate on his father’s interest in 1818, and again in 1820. He was a silent Member whose few certain votes indicate that he followed his Grenvillite father’s line, by giving general support to Lord Liverpool’s ministry. He voted in defence of their conduct towards Queen Caroline, 6 Feb., and against repeal of the additional malt duty, 3 Apr. 1821. The remainder of his parliamentary activity for this session is indistinguishable from that of his elder brother John. One of them divided for Catholic relief, 28 Feb., and against opposition resolutions on the state of the revenue, 6 Mar., and reduction in the grant for the adjutant-general’s office, 11 Apr. Both their names were put forward for the Aldborough election committee, 8 May, according to the petitioner William Bryant who, as a long-standing enemy of the Cocks interest at Reigate, objected to the appointments. Surr. Hist. Cent. 176/5/2c, 2e. Either James or John voted against parliamentary reform, 9 May, mitigation of the punishment for forgery, 23 May, and reduction of the barracks grant, 25 May 1821. That summer the government conferred on their father the earldom that he had long coveted. Cocks divided against more extensive tax reductions, 11, 21 Feb., and for the aliens bill, 19 July 1822.

He vacated his seat early in 1823 and subsequently entered the church, as he had originally intended. By 1830 he had obtained three ecclesiastical appointments, the last of which may have been procured through his father’s influence with the duke of Wellington. Wellington mss WP1/922/15; 965/3; 974/36; 1087/18. He died in July 1856, by which time he was the heir presumptive to his nephew, the 3rd Earl Somers, to whom he devised the house at Mathon, Herefordshire, where he had been living. The principal beneficiary of his personal estate was his niece, Lady Caroline Courtenay. Gent. Mag. (1856), ii. 254; PROB/11/2239/748; IR26/2027/967.