Alfred Cox was a 19th-century runholder and Member of the New Zealand House of Representatives. Born in New South Wales into an upper middle class military family, he was sent home to England to learn about farming. Upon returning to New South Wales, he heard about the large profits that were possible in South Canterbury and bought licences for land that he had not seen. He stocked the land, put a manager in charge and made another trip to England with his wife and their, at that time, small family. He moved to New Zealand permanently in 1857 and lived on his large farm, Raukapuka, which stretched from the sea to the foothills, and of which the homestead was located in present-day Geraldine. He sold his South Canterbury interests and moved to the Waikato, where he bought large land holdings in Hamilton and Thames. He tried to drain his swamp land and lost a lot of money with those ventures. He sold up in 1882 and moved to Christchurch, where he retired.

The Canterbury Province was a province of New Zealand from 1853 until the abolition of provincial government in 1876. Its capital was Christchurch.