ALISON COX, 1925-2012
Alison Cox … a keen scholar, she never stopped learning.
Alison Cox was a committed and enthusiastic volunteer for Tresillian Family Care Centres, a Sydney organisation dedicated to providing advice and support to parents with a young baby. She spent over two decades on the Tresillian Council, from 1971 to 1993, including six years as president.
She presided over a period of major development activity for Tresillian, including the launch of the Tresillian Parent's Help Line in 1988. Then she played a key role in lobbying for a new residential and day stay facility in Penrith. Her persistence paid off and in 1992 Tresillian Wentworth opened. Recently, the centre celebrated its 20th birthday and Cox was one of the guests of honour. She remained passionate about Tresillian until the end of her life.
Marjorie Alison Aston Peirce was born on February 28, 1925, in Port Macquarie, the youngest of four children of Arthur and Marjorie Peirce. Arthur was a district surveyor with the then Lands Department, then district surveyor for Goulburn, so the family moved frequently in her childhood.
For high school, Alison was sent as a boarder to Brighton College, Manly. School holidays, however, were full of adventure. Arthur would take the family to what were then relatively unknown places. He had an old Ford but horses were still needed in the more remote locations. On one Snowy Mountains surveying trip, Alison and Arthur rode from Waste Point near the Creel to Blue Lake near the summit with their supplies on packhorses.
Alison started medicine at the University of Sydney, but didn't like either chemistry or the cadavers so after a year, she switched to arts and graduated in 1950. Humanities and politics remained her most enduring life interests.
Later that year, she went to Britain. By day she worked diligently for the BBC in the fledgling field of audience research, and by night London was a heady cocktail of concerts, theatre and parties.
When her father became ill in 1953, Alison returned to Australia and worked on the Royal Commission into Television in Melbourne. She had an interest in media and broad-casting for the rest of her life, particularly children's' television, which she pursued with some intensity.
In the mid 1950s, she returned to England. At a wedding, she caught up with an Australian friend, Neville Cox, who became pressing in his attentions. He had just come to London from Northwestern University in Chicago, where he had completed a doctorate in orthodontics, then a relatively new field of dentistry. They married in England in 1954 and returned to Australia in 1958.
Neville became a successful orthodontist in Sydney. Alison was his wife and helpmeet (an old fashioned but appropriate word) and dedicated mother to their children.
At the same time, through the 1960s, Cox was active in the NSW Council for Children's Film and Television, agitating for better quality children's content. In this role, she organised film festivals as well as lobbying for better scrutiny of children's television. In 1977, she completed a graduate diploma in Communications at the Institute (now University) of Technology Sydney.
She was also very active in the Independent Scholars Association of Australia, a national organisation formed to support and encourage people doing scholarly work outside formal research or educational institutions. She was one of the association's earliest and most enthusiastic members and served for a time as vice-chair of the NSW chapter. In 1991, she was awarded an OAM.
Cox was always a keen traveller. She visited North and South America and Alaska and made several trips to Europe, usually with her husband. More recently, she enjoyed travelling around Australia and New Zealand, as well as trips to Turkey, Japan and China.
Throughout her life, Cox continued developing new interests, taking classes in everything from the history of Spain in the middle ages to current events in Palestine and the US elections. She was an active member of the Mitchell Library and the Historical Society and rarely missed theatre, opera or concerts.
Alison Cox is survived by her children Helen and Adrian and grandchildren Aston, Lachlan, Charles, Alexander and Genevieve. Neville died in 2001.Another daughter, Fiona, died of breast cancer in 1996, two months after the birth of her son Lachlan.
Ann Paton
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