Cox Street in the suburb of Merivale, Christchurch

Cox Street in Merivale – Named after Alfred Cox (1825- 1911). Cox was a gentleman of Merivale and a resident of the street in 1894. First appears in street directories in 1892

A small amount of information from the the library website and no Alfred Cox was not living in this street in 1894. Took me a while to track down information about Alfred Cox as there were several men with the same name and the family trees on Ancestry website were no help. Alfred actually lived on Office Road from 1890 until 1900 and then his address was Constance Street. He would have owned the land where Cox Street was formed. He owned lots of land in Canterbury and Cox Street in Ashburton and Temuka were probably named after him. He was born in Australia and his father was naval captain who had settled in NSW. He lived in South Canterbury for many years before settling in Christchurch.

Trying to research on Papers Past was almost impossible as most entries were about Ashburton. The street had concrete channeling done in 1889 and there was a death notice in 1898. The sewer extensions were completed in 1915. Apart from ads and death notices there was practically nothing on Papers Past.

The houses on the street range from 1915 to 2024 with a biggish block of houses built in the 1970s. The modern houses are seriously ugly and the house that I did like was from 1930. Again google maps don’t show street view earlier than 2012 which is annoying. I must contact Quake Studies as I thought that there was an arrangement for street view to show pre earthquake Christchurch.