Partner Rupert
Brooke
Queer Places:
University of Cambridge, 4 Mill Ln, Cambridge CB2 1RZ
Katherine
Laird ("Ka") Cox (1887 - May 23, 1938), the daughter of a
British socialist stockbroker and his wife, was a Fabian and graduate
of Cambridge University. There, she met Rupert
Brooke, becoming his lover, and was a member of his Neo-Pagans. She was
also a friend of Virginia Woolf and
the Bloomsbury Group. During World War I she worked with the Serbian Relief
Fund, assisting refugees in Corsica. After the war, she married
the Labour politician Will Arnold-Forster, and became the first
woman magistrate in Cornwall. She and her husband were instrumental in
founding Gordonstoun School in Scotland in 1934. Her sudden death at the age
of 51 fueled speculation of involvement in the occult.
Katherine Laird Cox, known as "Ka",[a] was
the daughter of Henry Fisher Cox (1848–1905)[b] and
Jane Thompson Laird (ca. 1852–1900). Cox was a wealthy stockbroker and Fabian.
Ka was raised in "Hook Hill", a house her father had built at Hook Heath, near
Woking, Surrey in 1893.[10] Ka
was the second of three daughters, her sisters being Hester Laird Cox and
Margaret Anna Laird Cox. Ka's mother, who had been in poor health, died in
1900 when Ka was only 13. Her father later remarried and had two further
daughters, Winifred and Sydney, by his second wife Edith. She attended St.
Felix School, Southwold in Suffolk, "a school where girls are treated like
sensible creatures", then considered a feeder school for Newnham College,
Cambridge.[11] Ka's
father died suddenly on 19 January 1905, when she was 18, with an estate of
£22,000,[3] leaving
her and her sisters financially independent.[12][13] Ka
was left in the slightly unusual position for a young woman of her class and
time of now being free to live, travel and love, as she pleased.[14] On
her father's death, her stepmother sold "Hook Hill" and moved into a smaller
house, further down the hill, called "Hook Hill Cottage" (1904), for a further
ten years.[13]
In 1906, Ka first encountered the Bloomsbury Group, attending some of Vanessa
Bell's Friday Club fine arts discussions at Gordon Square.[15] She
frequently posed for Duncan Grant,[16] and
one of his portraits of her was submitted to Roger
Fry's second Post-Impressionist exhibition in 1912.[17]
Ka was described as having a sweet nature and while not conventionally pretty,
having a fresh clear-skinned appearance that was appealing. She was said to be
an aesthete, wearing diaphanous clothing with Peter Pan collars, "a miracle of
poise, maturity and charm", who appealed equally to women and men. She made
her own clothes, and Gwen Darwin describes
her "standing on the very edge of the cliff, her crimson skirt whirling in the
wind, her head tied up in a blue handkerchief, and the gulls screaming below".[11][18] Other
accounts describe her as the "lumpy, lovable Ka Cox, who was motherly and very
sexy...a heroine who goes through reversals of fortune".[6]
Katherine Cox (1887–1938)
Duncan Grant (1885–1978)
National Museum Wales, National Museum Cardiff
Later in 1906, Ka went up to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she read
history, graduating in 1910.[19] There,
she joined the Fabian Society, which at that time admitted members from the
women's colleges and was one of the few places at the university that men and
women could meet on equal terms, and which espoused women's
rights and feminism.[20][21] At
Cambridge, she was considered one of the emancipated "new women".[22] She
became the second treasurer of the Cambridge Fabian Society, succeeding Amber
Reeves[c] (co-founder
of the society in 1905), where she met Rupert Brooke (1887–1915). Brooke, who
had also gone up to Cambridge (King's) to read classics in 1906, was a member
of the steering committee of the Fabians and President (1909–1910). Brooke was
also a member of the Cambridge Apostles, and after graduating in 1909 had
taken up residence in nearby Grantchester, switching to English Literature and
continuing his association with the university, working on a dissertation. In
1910 he had become engaged to Noël Olivier,
but broke it off the following year, although continuing the relationship. Ka
became part of Brooke's circle, which also included Jacques
Raverat and Gwen Darwin, a group that coalesced around him from 1908 till
his death in 1915, and which later became to be dubbed the Neo-Pagans.[23] The
membership of this group was drawn largely from the two societies in which men
and women mixed, the Fabian Society and the Marlowe Dramatic Society (founded
by Brookes). Another unifying feature was that many of them had been to school
at Bedales, a progressive co-educational institution that emphasised the
outdoor life. One of the Neo-Pagan rules was comradely chastity "We don’t
copulate without marriage" (Brooke), which turned out to be difficult to
sustain.[18] The
group started to form in early 1908, when Rupert Brooke began putting together
a production of Milton's Comus for performance in July. Ka, together with a
number of other young women, were drawn in to work on the costumes, while
Brooke started to draw up rules, such as asking them to forswear engagement or
marriage for six months.[24]
Initially Ka formed a relationship with Raverat, and in 1908 they had begun
conducting a courtship by correspondence, due to Raverat's ill health obliging
him to recuperate in Switzerland.[25] By
June 1910, he decided he was in love with her, proposing to her on a number of
occasions but she constantly offered only friendship in exchange.[26] Eventually
he suggested a triangular marriage with Darwin, but although Darwin initially
gave the matter serious consideration,[d] both
women eventually rejected the idea, Darwin requesting Ka to discontinue the
relationship.[e][28][11][18]
Through 1910, Brooke was becoming increasingly frustrated with the way Noël
was keeping him at arm's length and thinking increasingly about Ka.[29] By
1911, Brooke had decided he was in love with Ka,[30] who
was increasingly pushing Raverat in the direction of Darwin, and Ka and Brooke
became involved. She made his clothes for him[f] but
like many of the women in Brooke's life resisted a physical relationship,
initially.[18] But
eventually she yielded to him by March 1912.[32][18] Raverat,
noting Ka's progressive attachment to Brooke, and her refusal of his own
proposal, became engaged to Darwin.[11][18] Some
light on this complex relationship is provided in Gwen Darwin's unfinished
novel (started in 1916 and set in 1906) in which she depicts Ka as a character
named Barbara.[33][34]
Brooke wrote incessantly to Ka, who provided him with both existential passion
and a calming domestic presence "When I shut my eyes and whisper your name
over, I can feel your hands and face and hair above and about me" (26 January
1912). Her involvement with Brooke placed her in a further complicated series
of triangular relationships, with Brooke's simultaneous attachment to both
Noël Olivier and her sister Brynhild
Olivier (Bryn),[6] and
Cox with Henry Lamb,[35] who
was in turn involved with Lytton Strachey.
After Christmas 1911, Brooke travelled to Lulworth in Dorset to be with Ka and
her friends, including Henry Lamb. On being told about Lamb, Brooke proposed
to Ka, but she refused him and told him she loved Lamb.[30] The
breakup between Cox and Brooke is thought to have contributed to
Brooke's breakdown in January 1912.[12][36][37] However
Ka and Brooke were together again by the end of the month, living
in Munich during February.[31] They
continued to see each other and in late 1912 she was pregnant and had
a miscarriage, or possibly stillbirth.[30] Ka
contemplated marriage, but both Lamb and Brooke were turning elsewhere, Brooke
continuing to pursue both Noël and Bryn, but was firmly resisted. There were
at least five other women in Brooke's life at this time, Phyllis Gardner, like
Gwen Darwin, an art student at the Slade, the actress Cathleen Nesbitt,[6] Elizabeth
van Rysselberghe, daughter of the Belgian artist Théo van Rysselberghe,[38] Lady
Eileen Wellesley,[39] daughter
of the 4th Duke of Wellington, and during 1913 a Tahitian woman named
Taatamata.[40]
After Brooke enlisted on 15 September 1914[30] following
the outbreak of World War I, he continued to appeal to Ka's motherly side
(rather than his own mother),[41] constantly
requesting equipment and the comforts of home.[42] Like
the others, Ka continued to receive correspondence from Brooke[g] right
up to his death,[31] the
last letter poignantly beginning "I suppose you’re about the best I can do in
the way of a widow" (10 March 1915).[43][18]
By the time of her fourth year at Newnham, her social work projects meant she
spent increasing amounts of time in London, staying at the flat she shared
with her sister Hester in Petty France, Westminster, which in turn became a
gathering place for Neo-Pagans. Although she had aspirations to become a
writer,[44] she
was also trying to put her socialism into practice bv, as Raverat put it
"burying herself in the slums".[45] On
leaving Newnham in 1910, Ka divided her time between London and the family
cottage in Woking ("Hook Hill Cottage"),[13] where
Rupert Brooke was a frequent visitor. Cottage life enabled her to pursue
the Simple Life,[h] favoured
by the Neo-Pagans, on her own.[11][46][20]
Through Brooke's circle, Ka met Virginia Woolf (then Virginia Stephen), who
was associated with the group during 1911 and 1912. The meeting took place at Bertrand
Russell's house near Oxford on a weekend in January 1911, through a mutual
friend, Ray Costelloe,[i] niece
of Alys Russell, Bertrand's wife.[47] Also
there, was Ray's younger sister Karin Costelloe,
who was to marry Virginia's younger brother Adrian
Stephen, and Marjorie Strachey, sister of Lytton Strachey, all of whom
were Newnhamites. Virginia, who unlike her brothers, was deprived of a
Cambridge education, was fascinated by these young women graduates.[7]
Both women had lost their parents at similar ages, and Virginia had an
association with Newnham, her cousin Katharine Stephen, being Librarian,
Vice-Principal and then from 1911 Principal there, and having had
to chaperone the Stephen sisters on their visits to Cambridge.[48] After
meeting Ka, who was five years her junior, Virginia described her as being in
"the heart of young womanhood", "Miss Cox is one of the younger
Newnhamites...She is a bright, intelligent, nice creature; who has, she says,
very few emotions".[7] Virginia
and Ka soon became friends, with Ka frequently being summoned to help when
Virginia became ill. She also became a confidante and correspondent of Woolf,
who bestowed on her the nickname "Bruin".[49][50]
The Stephen sisters dubbed Brooke and his energetic outdoors circle as
"Neo-Pagans", Virginia at least seeing them as a viable rural alternative to
Bloomsbury.[51] A
further connection between Woolf and Brooke was that her brother, Adrian
Stephen, was among Noël Olivier's many suitors.[52][j] Woolf
thus created a brief connection between the two circles of Edwardian
intellectuals, Bloomsbury and Neo-Pagan.[6]
Ka had planned to help share Virginia's house on Brunswick Square in 1911, but
abandoned this under pressure from Brooke who was turning against the
Bloomsbury Group, partly because of Ka's attraction to Virginia, describing it
as a "bawdy house", an appellation he shared with other Neo-Pagans.[k][56][6] In
1913, Ka found Woolf unconscious from an overdose of veronal, and her prompt
intervention saved her life.[57] The
two women gradually lost touch with each other after Ka married, and Virginia
was rather critical of the match, which she deemed unromantic.[12][18][58] Ka
rightly sensed this, writing to Virginia "I feel you will probably not like
Will".[59]
Ka was later to become the inspiration for Mary Datchett in Woolf's Night and
Day (1919).[60][61]
After the war, Ka married William Arnold-Forster, a naval officer, in 1918
and they moved to Cornwall, living in a large house called "The Eagle’s Nest"
at Zennor,[l] on
the coast near St Ives. Initially they rented, then purchased the house in
1921,[63] where
her husband planted a garden that was considered remarkable.[62] Her
husband was active in the Labour Party, where he worked on internal relations,
publishing and speaking extensively on peace and disarmament. In 1920 she gave
birth to their only son, the author and journalist Mark
Arnold-Forster (1920–1981).
Ka died suddenly on 23 May 1938 while her husband was away on a peace
mission in North America and her death has been surrounded by many myths and
legends, largely involving Aleister
Crowley and witchcraft.[64][58] Her
estate at the time of her death was £6,427.[3]
In addition to her activities with the Fabian Society, Ka lectured
at Morley College and worked actively for women's suffrage together with her
sister Hester.[65] Hester
had formed a branch of the Women's Social and Political Union in Woking in
1909, and was its secretary till 1913. Another local activist, and Bloomsbury
member, was Ethel Smythe.[66]
During the First World War, a Women's International Congress was held in April
1915 at The Hague, in the Netherlands, which was a neutral state. Ka was one
of the 156 British delegates (the British General Committee), but all but
three were prevented from crossing the North Sea by Winston Churchill.[67] In
January 1916, Ka answered a call for volunteers from the Serbian Relief Fund
to work with refugees in Corsica.[m][68] She
was awarded the MBE for this work, but declined it.[58] Later
she worked at the Admiralty, where she met her future husband, Lieutenant
Commander William Arnold-Forster.[58] In
Germany in 1933 she worked for the release of Kurt Hahn from the Nazis, and
with her husband helped him establish Gordonstoun School in 1934.[69][70] In
Cornwall, she became the first woman to be appointed as a magistrate.[58]
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