Alan Cox, Methodist minister, was born in 1926. He worked as a draughtsman until 1944 when he was called up to serve in Germany and Palestine. In 1949 he spent a year at Cliff College and then trained at Hartley Victoria College in Manchester. He had ministries in various locations becoming Superintendent Minister of the Hemel Hempstead circuit before his retirement in 1992. Cox had a lifelong interest in missions and in work with children. While at Cliff College he had met Alan Roberts who, with his wife Doris, became a missionary in Nigeria. Cox was one of their most effective supporters and was particularly successful in interesting others in the Ovim (later Uzuakoli) Motherless Babies Home which they started in Eastern Nigeria in 1958. Cox continued to take an interest in the Home even after the Roberts were moved to Port Harcourt in 1959. The work continued, closely connected to the Leprosy Settlement at Uzuakoli, supervised by Bella Teite and then Nona Bell. Shortly before his retirement Cox was granted a sabbatical to travel to Nigeria and to research and write about the history of the home.