South Yorkshire Times, March 5th, 1960
Thurnscoe Hill Schoolmaster Selected For Appointment As Education Officer In Uganda
For Three Years – But the Post Could Be Permanent
From Bolton-on-Dearne to Uganda. That is the journey a 27-years-old school teacher will be making next month. He is Mr. Robert Merrington Cox of 135, Furlong Road, Bolton, teacher at Thurnscoe Hill Boys’ Secondary School, who has been selected for appointment to the Government of Uganda as an Education Officer.
Born In Bolton
Mr. Cox who teaches geography and history at Thurnscoe, was born in Bolton and attended Wath Grammar School before going on to Sheffield University, where he gained a B.A. Honours degree in geography and the Diploma in Education
He corresponds regularly with a friend from Goldthorpe who is also an Education Officer in Uganda and, it was through this correspondence that he first had the idea of following in his friend’s footsteps. He applied through the Colonial Office and will probably work in Northern Uganda teaching African children.
Not The First Visit
He is expected to sail in the S.S. Kenya Castle on April 22nd, but this will not be his first visit to Africa. He served in the Royal Army Education Corps. for 14 months in Libya after leaving Sheffield University. Since he came out of the army two years ago, he has been teaching in Thurnscoe.
Army service interrupted his studies for an M.A. and he is now trying to complete a thesis for the coal industry before he leaves for East Africa.
“I am going for a three-year period, but the post could very well become permanent” Mr. Cox told a “South Yorkshire Times” reporter. “I have always wanted to go abroad and I have been thinking about it for some time.”
Mr. Cox’s brother, Stanley, emigrated to Australia and his step-brother Thomas lives in Canada.
Mr. Cox will be going to a country where it is estimated, there are 1,350.000 children of school age. About 20,000 of them are Asian, 1,900 European and the rest African.