Background
He was born at Chester, a grandson of the late George Cotton, Dean of Chester.
He was born at Chester, a grandson of the late George Cotton, Dean of Chester.
He graduated Bachelor in 1836, and became an assistant master at Rugby School.
He received his education at The King"s School, Chester, Westminster School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Arnold"s influence determined the character and course of Cotton"s life. He became master of the fifth form in about 1840.
In 1852 he accepted the appointment of headmaster at Marlborough College.
Both Rugby School and Marlborough College boarding houses were subsequently named after him. In 1858 Cotton was offered the office of the Bishop of Calcutta, which, after much hesitation, he accepted.
The government of had just been transferred from the British East Company to the crown, and questions of education were eagerly discussed, following Macaulay"s famous Minute on n Education. As the senior Anglican prelate in, he also consecrated a number of new churches throughout the subcontinent, including Saint Luke"s Church, Abbottabad, and others on what then used to be the "Punjab Frontier" and later became the North West Frontier Province.
On 6 October 1866, he had consecrated a cemetery at Kushtia on the Ganges, and was crossing a plank leading from the bank to the steamer when he slipped and fell into the river.
He was carried away by the current and never seen again. Cotton married Sophia Ann Tomkinson, daughter of Reverend Henry Tomkinson, on 26 June 1845. Their son Edward Cotton-Jodrell was later Member of Parliament for Wirral.
A memoir of his life with selections from his journals and correspondence, edited by his widow, was published in 1871.