Walter Alfred Cox, painter and printmaker, was born in St Pancras, London, England on 10 August 1862. He was the fourth son of Thomas Henry Whitmore Cox who was an art printer .In 1879, Walter A. Cox was apprenticed to the Danish engraver Joel John Ballin and worked for him in London for three years. During this time, he took evening classes at the West London School of Art and, at the St Pancras Industrial Exhibition of 1880, he entered a crayon drawing and won a silver medal. In the 1890s he attended photogravure classes at the Regent Street Polytechnic.

After Ballin was appointed Engraver-Royal to the King of Denmark in 1882, Cox worked independently as an etcher. On 30 August 1888, at St Matthew’s Church, Oakley Square, St Pancras, Cox married Alice Smith, the daughter of John Smith, a coachmaker. He became a skilled printmaker, working in color mezzotint, reproducing works by the masters and his contemporaries. Most of these mezzotints are portraits but he also worked with landscapes and historical scenes. The British Museum holds seven of his prints. Walter A. Cox died on 10 November 1931 in London, England.