COXE, William (1747-1828), archdeacon of Wilts, traveller, and historian, was born at London in 1747. He was elected fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, in 1768, and afterwards went abroad on a visit to the different Continental states, where he prosecuted the researches which were afterwards incorporated into his historical works. On his final return to England he was appointed to the rectory of Bemerton, and in 1808 was preferred to the archdeaconry of Wilts. Towards the close of his life his vision became seriously impaired, and for nearly seven years before his death he was totally blind. He died at Bemerton in 1828.

Of his numerous works the most important are— Sketches of the Natural, Civil, and Political State of Switzerland (1779); Private Correspondence of Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury (1821); Travels in Switzerland (1789); Travels in Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark (1784); Histories of the House of Austria, and of the Kings of Spain of the Hoτιse of Bourbon; Memoirs of John, Duke of Marlborough; Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole; Memoirs of the Administration of Henry Pelham (posthumous, 1839); Literary Life and Select Works of Bp. Stillingfleet.