British songwriter Desmond Cox was half of the partnership Box and Cox. The other half of the team was Harold Elton Box. Many of their songs were written jointly under the pseudonym Fred Heatherton. Their best-known songs, written in the 1930s and 1940s, were “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” and “I’ve Got Sixpence.” Another of their joint pseudonyms was “Louis Elton,” which they used on “My Shadow Misses Your Shadow” and the popular “When They Sound the Last 'All Clear.’ " Vera Lynn, known as the British “Forces’ Sweetheart” for her many concerts for the troops, sang this last one for a 1941 release during World War II.
Of the 84 entries for the pair on the Discogs website, by far the most are for various artists and film soundtracks using these two songs. Their coconut song was a hit with Merv Griffin singing it in 1950 and Danny Kaye the following year. It was used more recently in “The Lion King” film and in music for an episode of the television series “Coronation Street.” The original “I’ve Got Sixpence” rhyme dates back at least to 1810, but they revised the words and put it to music; this too was used in numerous film soundtracks. The partners also opened their own Box & Cox Music Publishing Company. The company name was a play on the title of a one-act farce, Cox & Box, that was popular in the late 19th century.
Son of Sarah Miller Cox and Michael Cox (Waterloo veteran), Irish immigrants, Palmer Cox is born in Granby, Québec in 1840. He leaves after his graduation at the protestant Granby Academy to work various jobs (carpentry, railroad and ship construction) in Massachussets, Ontario and California. In Ontario, in 1865, he is part of the local militia, in the quality of drill sergeant. He settles in San Francisco in 1870 where he joins the Mission Masonic Lodge (n.169) and starts to publish stories, poems and illustration in local magazines, and a first book of humorous illustrated verse. During this time, he becomes a United States citizen. He then moves to New York in 1874 to 1878, where he publishes three more books of humorous verse and illustrations, as well as illustrations and poems created for advertisement purposes. He then starts to write and draw for a younger audience. He produces poems and illustrations for Wide Awake! and St Nicholas Magazine from 1879, the latter of whom will see the appearance of the Brownies in 1883. These characters will be the center of Palmer Cox’s work for the rest of his life, appearing in magazines, in 11 books, various stage shows and plays, and derived commercial products. During this time, he lives in Broadway, then East Quogue (N.Y.). Aside from the Brownies, Palmer Cox also has some of his earlier books, aimed at a broader audience, re-published and augmented, continues his involvement in masonry, and co-create a series of children’s stories with E. Veale, in which he only illustrates. He retires to Granby in the 1910’s, where he had a house named Brownie Castle built from 1902 to 1906, where he is considered as a public figure, Palmer Cox regularly reading original poems and speeches at various social occasions, such as school graduation ceremonies, meetings of the Granby Congregational Social Club. Regularly praising American patriotism and himself a U.S. citizen, he remains involved as a Canadian citizen, loyal to the United Kingdom, and even composes a poem for the coronation of George V, King of the United Kingdom, in 1910. He remains a frequent visitor and public figure in East Quogue, where he delivers a speech in 1917 supporting American patriotism and the Liberty Bonds during World War I. He is honored by the city on the occasion of his 80th birthday, with a production of the play the Brownies in Fairyland by local children and several speeches. He dies in Granby in 1924. Having sold more than 100 000 Brownies books as early as 1895, Palmer Cox was a literary figure and a pioneer in licensing his characters to be used for commercial purposes, with Brownies-themed drinks, games, tableware, dolls and the Eastman-Kodak Brownie camera.
