Downstream

swam in the river. ‘It was
possible until the forties of
the last century to enjoy a dip
without going far from
Westminster Bridge,’ wrote
John Carleton in his 1965
history of the school. But
tides and currents meant it
wasn’t the safest pastime. The
Annual Register for August
1781 notes, ‘Drowned, as he
was bathing in the Thames,
the 2nd son of Sir Charles
Cox, Bart., an amiable and