Pam Cox

Pamela Margaret Cox is a British Labour Party politician and academic who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Colchester since 2024.

Pam Cox MP
Official portrait, 2024
Member of Parliament for Colchester
Incumbent
Assumed office 4 July 2024
Preceded by	Will Quince
Majority	8,250 (18.4%)
Personal details
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	University of Cambridge (BA) and (Ph.D.)
Academic background
Thesis	Rescue and reform Girls, delinquency and industrial schools 1908-1933 (1997)

Biography

Pamela Cox was brought up in Southend. Her mother was a midwife before becoming a nurse. Her father left school at the age of 15 and was apprenticed as a joiner before joining the church and becoming a minister. She has two sisters, both of whom became nurses in south Essex.^[1]

Cox studied history at Robinson College, Cambridge,^[2] and in 1997 was awarded a PhD for a thesis on the history of girls' delinquency in Britain.^[3] Prior to her election as an MP, she was a professor of social history and criminology at the University of Essex, and has been a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts since 2017. She presented the BBC documentary series, Shopgirls: The True Story of Life Behind the Counter and Servants: The True Story of Life Below Stairs, and has contributed to historical and cultural programmes for Channel 4 and Channel 5 including Edwardian Britain in Colour.^[3]

Politics

In 1994, Cox joined the Labour Party.^[4] She has been a New Town and Christ Church councillor since May 2021, and on 5 November 2022 she became the Labour Party prospective parliamentary candidate in the 2024 general election for Colchester.^[5][6][7] Upon her election to parliament, she became the first female MP to represent the constituency.^[8]

In November 2024, Cox voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which proposes to legalise assisted suicide.^[9]

Works

• Becoming Delinquent: British and European Youth, 1650-1950 (2002) (co-authored with Heather Shore)^[10]
• Gender, Justice and Welfare: Bad Girls in Britain, 1900-1950 (2003)^[11]
• Young Criminal Lives: Life Courses and Life Chances from 1850 (2017) (co-authored with Barry Godfrey, Heather Shore and Zoe Alker)^[12]
• Shopgirls: the True Story of Life Behind the Counter (2014) (co-authored with Annabel Hobley)^[13]
• Criminology: A Sociological Introduction (2014) (co-authored by Eamonn Carrabine, Pete Fussey, Dick Hobbs, Nigel South, Darren Thiel, Jackie Turton)^[14]