Ernest Cox
Encyclopedia
Ernest Frank Guelph Cox (1883–1959) was an electrical and mechanical engineer
and marine salvage
expert from Wolverhampton
. Between 1924 and 1931 his Cox & Danks Shipbreaking Co. successfully raised 35 of the German fleet that had been scuttled
at Gutter Sound
, Scapa Flow
in 1919. He eventually sold the business to the Alloa Shipbreaking Company. The books in the Bibliography and Further reading list give good accounts of Cox's many feats.
Born in 1883, the eleventh son of a Wolverhampton
draper, Cox left school at thirteen but chose to study electrical engineering in his spare time, and through a succession of jobs, earned himself the post of Engineer at a Wolverhampton power station by the age of eighteen. Deciding that anyone who could put electricity into peoples homes would become rich, Cox was determined to be just that, and moved to the post of Assistant Engineer at Leamington
, and from there to Ryde
Corporation on the Isle of Wight
. In doing so he learned the art of salesmanship, selling electrical power installation to the inhabitants of Ryde.
From Ryde he moved to Hamilton
, Scotland
at the age of twenty-three, a change of position that taught him the rudiments of man-management, the hard way. Moving yet again, this time to Wishaw
in Lanarkshire
, he took what was to be his last salaried job, laying down plant and network as Chief Engineer, aged just twenty-four. It was here in 1907 that Cox married the daughter of Wishaw Councillor Miller, the owner of Overton Forge, a Lanarkshire steelworks, and joined the firm as a partner. Unable to leave his post at the power station, he carried out both jobs simultaneously.
By 1913 he set up the firm of Cox and Danks Ltd, with himself as the inspiration and driving force with his wife's cousin Tommy Danks as the silent partner and financier. Danks had sought a way to increase his inheritance without personal involvement in business, whilst Cox had needed capital. The two were well positioned to profit from large munitions manufacturing contracts during the First World War. The end of hostilities opened new and lucrative opportunities in scrap and metal salvage, enabling Cox to open new business in Sheffield
, and buy out his partner's interests by 1920.
In 1921 Cox had branched out into shipbreaking and opened a yard at Queenborough, at the Isle of Sheppey on the Thames Estuary. There Cox broke up and sold off an assortment of war surplus vessels, including two British battleships and and some ex-German naval items including a large floating dock taken as reparation following the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet prior to the Armistice
. Lacking work, by 1924 he turned his attention to the wreckage of the High Seas Fleet, scuttled at its moorings in the natural harbour of Scapa Flow
in Orkney, off the North-east coast of Scotland in late June 1919. Though initially written off by the British Admiralty as unsalvageable, the recent rises in the price of scrap metal had changed the value of the wrecks to the extent that they would now be profitable to lift, based on Cox's estimates of the quantity of high quality Krupp steel armour alone, before taking into account non ferrous salvage.
Ignoring expert opinion, his initial investment was to buy from the Admiralty
the rights to salvage two battlecruisers - and - and twenty six destroyers. The two heavy ships were both accessible from the surface; Seydlitz was often mistaken for a small island as her port flank stuck perhaps six metres out of the water, and Hindenburg was upright with her decks awash. Cox’s idea was to raise the Hindenburg and use its twenty-six thousand ton hull as a floating platform from which to enable salvage of the other ships. This was ultimately to prove impractical, as several attempts to lift the Hindenburg ended in failure, due to the hulk’s instability and the likelihood of its capsizing whilst being pumped out, as it was sitting on rock and not shingle as had been first supposed.
He took his reparation ex-German floating dock, once used for U-Boat testing and sectioned it lengthwise in order to salvage the first of his destroyers, which was then cleaned and converted into a floating workshop. His team was composed of local labour supporting a core of hired divers and skilled salvage men from all over Scotland; after some practice they were raising a destroyer every four to six weeks, with the fastest lift being accomplished in just four days. Heartened by this, Cox bought the rights to the remainder of the sunken fleet, and proceeded to lift the battlecruiser which was upside down in shallow water with her keel at the surface at low tide. Adapting the advice of Italian salvage experts who had raised an upside down ship from the bottom of Taranto
Harbour, Cox raised the ship inverted by filling it with air. It was then lightened and towed to Rosyth on the Firth of Forth for scrapping, Cox having sold the hulk to the Alloa Shipbreaking Company for its weight in scrap. This basic technique would be used repeatedly on many ships of the fleet. Divers would descend to each wreck and perform work such as closing and dogging bulkhead
hatches and fastening plate-steel patches over holes. Then air would be pumped in from air compressor
s at the surface. In some cases where the hulls themselves could not be made close enough to air-tight, pontoons were used, similarly being filled with air, and ballast was sunk along side the sunken ships and then secured to them to counterbalance them for lifting.
A plain spoken and often blunt man, Cox was respected by his workers as being brilliant, hard working and stubborn to the point of pig-headedness. He did not spare either his workers or himself during the long months needed to carry out the salvage. During the eight years of the project, Cox kept his business afloat by common sense and good judgement, such as the salvage of coal from the wreck of the Seydlitz to provide fuel for his machinery during the General Strike
of 1926. This was balanced by acts of ego, such as the re-sinking of the Seydlitz after it had been successfully lifted early, as he had arranged for the press to be present on the day that it had been scheduled to be raised.
By May 1932, Cox had raised the battlecruisers SMS Moltke, SMS Seydlitz, , and SMS Hindenburg; the battleships and , and the light cruiser .
Fatal accidents on the wreck of the White Star
liner Cedric
, aground at Roche Point, off Cobh
, Ireland
in 1929, took some of the drive out of him, for he respected his workers and treated them almost as friends. In Cox's opinion money could always be replaced, but men couldn't. Additional fatalities amongst his men whilst raising the Von der Tann and the Prinzregent Luitpold served to convince him that the work was too dangerous to continue to pursue profit for its own sake. The Prinzregent Luitpold was the last ship that he raised in Orkney, despite having bought the rights to salvage , sunk at Scapa in 20 fathoms.
It was at this point that he sold his interests to Alloa Shipbreaking and retired from marine salvage, though he remained a consultant to the British Admiralty on matters of deep water salvage, and undertook the raising of the old battleship , which they had used as a target ship and sunk by mistake. His last salvage task was during the war, the raising of the ship Stella, bombed by the Luftwaffe, which had then sunk in and thereby blocked the Manchester Ship Canal.
Foreseeing the possibilities of another war in Europe, Cox had expanded Cox and Danks, opening yards in Manchester
, Birmingham
, Park Royal London
, Brentford
, Neath
, Feltham
and Bedford
. He undertook research and development for classified materials for the Ministry of Supply
. Again Cox and Danks flourished as the war ended, disposing of military surplus and salvage. In 1949, Cox sold the firm to Metal Industries Group, who by now owned Alloa Shipbreaking.
Cox spent the remainder of his days supporting charities, organising and giving lectures on deepwater salvage, including the High Seas Fleet.
In failing health, Ernest Cox died in 1959 at the age of seventy-six. Though his salvage business never quite broke even during the course of the salvage of the German fleet (he was ten thousand pounds out of pocket at the sale of his interests), his scrap metal business offset the loss by turning considerable profit; whilst Cox was frequently assumed to be a poor businessman who did not understand business efficiency, it is also true that he suffered from an astonishing amount of bad luck in the varying degrees of difficulty of ship salvage that ensures that no two lifts are ever the same. The rise and fall of the price of scrap frequently ate up the best of his profits during the long salvage operation. Accidents that were as much the fault of the elements as much as human error plagued the salvage. Despite all this, his yard at Lyness
on the Orkney Island of Hoy
employed 200 workers at the peak of his business, and he was noted for granting holidays with pay during times of financial hardship.
The firm of Cox and Danks Ltd was still in business after 1962; the majority of the GWR King Class locomotives were withdrawn late that year, and ten were allocated to Cox and Danks for disposal (Portraits of Kings; B Holden & K Leech, Moorland Publishing Co.Ltd 1979).
and much of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow. Ships listed with owners and dates sold. (Republished by Peter Rowlands and Stephen Birchall, 1998.)
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
and marine salvage
Marine salvage
Marine salvage is the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo, or other property from peril. Salvage encompasses rescue towing, refloating a sunken or grounded vessel, or patching or repairing a ship...
expert from Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
. Between 1924 and 1931 his Cox & Danks Shipbreaking Co. successfully raised 35 of the German fleet that had been scuttled
Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow
The scuttling of the German fleet took place at the Royal Navy's base at Scapa Flow, in Scotland, after the end of the First World War. The High Seas Fleet had been interned there under the terms of the Armistice whilst negotiations took place over the fate of the ships...
at Gutter Sound
Gutter Sound
Gutter Sound is an inlet of the vast anchorage of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. Gutter Sound was the site of the mass-scuttling of the interned German Imperial High Seas Fleet in 1919.-Scuttling of the fleet:...
, Scapa Flow
Scapa Flow
right|thumb|Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern endScapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. It is about...
in 1919. He eventually sold the business to the Alloa Shipbreaking Company. The books in the Bibliography and Further reading list give good accounts of Cox's many feats.
Born in 1883, the eleventh son of a Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
draper, Cox left school at thirteen but chose to study electrical engineering in his spare time, and through a succession of jobs, earned himself the post of Engineer at a Wolverhampton power station by the age of eighteen. Deciding that anyone who could put electricity into peoples homes would become rich, Cox was determined to be just that, and moved to the post of Assistant Engineer at Leamington
Leamington
-Places:* Leamington, Ontario, Canada* Leamington, Utah, USA* Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England-Other:* HMS Leamington, a U.S. Navy destroyer transferred to the United Kingdom, see USS Twiggs...
, and from there to Ryde
Ryde
Ryde is a British seaside town, civil parish and the most populous town and urban area on the Isle of Wight, with a population of approximately 30,000. It is situated on the north-east coast. The town grew in size as a seaside resort following the joining of the villages of Upper Ryde and Lower...
Corporation on the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
. In doing so he learned the art of salesmanship, selling electrical power installation to the inhabitants of Ryde.
From Ryde he moved to Hamilton
Hamilton, South Lanarkshire
Hamilton is a town in South Lanarkshire, in the west-central Lowlands of Scotland. It serves as the main administrative centre of the South Lanarkshire council area. It is the fifth-biggest town in Scotland after Paisley, East Kilbride, Livingston and Cumbernauld...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
at the age of twenty-three, a change of position that taught him the rudiments of man-management, the hard way. Moving yet again, this time to Wishaw
Wishaw
Wishaw is a large town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is on the edge of the Clyde Valley, 15 miles south-east of Glasgow....
in Lanarkshire
Lanarkshire
Lanarkshire or the County of Lanark ) is a Lieutenancy area, registration county and former local government county in the central Lowlands of Scotland...
, he took what was to be his last salaried job, laying down plant and network as Chief Engineer, aged just twenty-four. It was here in 1907 that Cox married the daughter of Wishaw Councillor Miller, the owner of Overton Forge, a Lanarkshire steelworks, and joined the firm as a partner. Unable to leave his post at the power station, he carried out both jobs simultaneously.
By 1913 he set up the firm of Cox and Danks Ltd, with himself as the inspiration and driving force with his wife's cousin Tommy Danks as the silent partner and financier. Danks had sought a way to increase his inheritance without personal involvement in business, whilst Cox had needed capital. The two were well positioned to profit from large munitions manufacturing contracts during the First World War. The end of hostilities opened new and lucrative opportunities in scrap and metal salvage, enabling Cox to open new business in Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, and buy out his partner's interests by 1920.
In 1921 Cox had branched out into shipbreaking and opened a yard at Queenborough, at the Isle of Sheppey on the Thames Estuary. There Cox broke up and sold off an assortment of war surplus vessels, including two British battleships and and some ex-German naval items including a large floating dock taken as reparation following the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet prior to the Armistice
Armistice
An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
. Lacking work, by 1924 he turned his attention to the wreckage of the High Seas Fleet, scuttled at its moorings in the natural harbour of Scapa Flow
Scapa Flow
right|thumb|Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern endScapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. It is about...
in Orkney, off the North-east coast of Scotland in late June 1919. Though initially written off by the British Admiralty as unsalvageable, the recent rises in the price of scrap metal had changed the value of the wrecks to the extent that they would now be profitable to lift, based on Cox's estimates of the quantity of high quality Krupp steel armour alone, before taking into account non ferrous salvage.
Ignoring expert opinion, his initial investment was to buy from the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
the rights to salvage two battlecruisers - and - and twenty six destroyers. The two heavy ships were both accessible from the surface; Seydlitz was often mistaken for a small island as her port flank stuck perhaps six metres out of the water, and Hindenburg was upright with her decks awash. Cox’s idea was to raise the Hindenburg and use its twenty-six thousand ton hull as a floating platform from which to enable salvage of the other ships. This was ultimately to prove impractical, as several attempts to lift the Hindenburg ended in failure, due to the hulk’s instability and the likelihood of its capsizing whilst being pumped out, as it was sitting on rock and not shingle as had been first supposed.
He took his reparation ex-German floating dock, once used for U-Boat testing and sectioned it lengthwise in order to salvage the first of his destroyers, which was then cleaned and converted into a floating workshop. His team was composed of local labour supporting a core of hired divers and skilled salvage men from all over Scotland; after some practice they were raising a destroyer every four to six weeks, with the fastest lift being accomplished in just four days. Heartened by this, Cox bought the rights to the remainder of the sunken fleet, and proceeded to lift the battlecruiser which was upside down in shallow water with her keel at the surface at low tide. Adapting the advice of Italian salvage experts who had raised an upside down ship from the bottom of Taranto
Taranto
Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....
Harbour, Cox raised the ship inverted by filling it with air. It was then lightened and towed to Rosyth on the Firth of Forth for scrapping, Cox having sold the hulk to the Alloa Shipbreaking Company for its weight in scrap. This basic technique would be used repeatedly on many ships of the fleet. Divers would descend to each wreck and perform work such as closing and dogging bulkhead
Bulkhead
Bulkhead may refer to:* Bulkhead, a compartment of a building for preventing spread of fires, see Compartmentalization * Bulkhead , a retaining wall used as a form of coastal management, akin to a seawall, or as a structural device such as a bulkhead partition* Bulkhead , a wall within the hull of...
hatches and fastening plate-steel patches over holes. Then air would be pumped in from air compressor
Air compressor
An air compressor is a device that converts power into kinetic energy by compressing and pressurizing air, which, on command, can be released in quick bursts...
s at the surface. In some cases where the hulls themselves could not be made close enough to air-tight, pontoons were used, similarly being filled with air, and ballast was sunk along side the sunken ships and then secured to them to counterbalance them for lifting.
A plain spoken and often blunt man, Cox was respected by his workers as being brilliant, hard working and stubborn to the point of pig-headedness. He did not spare either his workers or himself during the long months needed to carry out the salvage. During the eight years of the project, Cox kept his business afloat by common sense and good judgement, such as the salvage of coal from the wreck of the Seydlitz to provide fuel for his machinery during the General Strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
of 1926. This was balanced by acts of ego, such as the re-sinking of the Seydlitz after it had been successfully lifted early, as he had arranged for the press to be present on the day that it had been scheduled to be raised.
By May 1932, Cox had raised the battlecruisers SMS Moltke, SMS Seydlitz, , and SMS Hindenburg; the battleships and , and the light cruiser .
Fatal accidents on the wreck of the White Star
White Star
The White Star is a fictional, cruiser class combat spacecraft type in the science fiction television series Babylon 5.- Depiction :The White Star-class was designed and built through a collaborative effort between the Minbari religious caste and the Vorlon Empire...
liner Cedric
RMS Cedric
RMS Cedric was laid down in 1902 at the shipyard of Harland and Wolff, Belfast. RMS Cedric was the second of White Star's series known as the "Big Four", the other three being , and . Celtic was the first ship to exceed Brunel's in overall tonnage, which was quite an accomplishment, considering...
, aground at Roche Point, off Cobh
Cobh
Cobh is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland. Cobh is on the south side of Great Island in Cork Harbour. Facing the town are Spike Island and Haulbowline Island...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
in 1929, took some of the drive out of him, for he respected his workers and treated them almost as friends. In Cox's opinion money could always be replaced, but men couldn't. Additional fatalities amongst his men whilst raising the Von der Tann and the Prinzregent Luitpold served to convince him that the work was too dangerous to continue to pursue profit for its own sake. The Prinzregent Luitpold was the last ship that he raised in Orkney, despite having bought the rights to salvage , sunk at Scapa in 20 fathoms.
It was at this point that he sold his interests to Alloa Shipbreaking and retired from marine salvage, though he remained a consultant to the British Admiralty on matters of deep water salvage, and undertook the raising of the old battleship , which they had used as a target ship and sunk by mistake. His last salvage task was during the war, the raising of the ship Stella, bombed by the Luftwaffe, which had then sunk in and thereby blocked the Manchester Ship Canal.
Foreseeing the possibilities of another war in Europe, Cox had expanded Cox and Danks, opening yards in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, Park Royal London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Brentford
Brentford
Brentford is a suburban town in west London, England, and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located at the confluence of the River Thames and the River Brent, west-southwest of Charing Cross. Its former ceremonial county was Middlesex.-Toponymy:...
, Neath
Neath
Neath is a town and community situated in the principal area of Neath Port Talbot, Wales, UK with a population of approximately 45,898 in 2001...
, Feltham
Feltham
Feltham is a town in the London Borough of Hounslow, west London. It is located about west south west of central London at Charing Cross and from Heathrow Airport Central...
and Bedford
Bedford
Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...
. He undertook research and development for classified materials for the Ministry of Supply
Ministry of Supply
The Ministry of Supply was a department of the UK Government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. There was, however, a separate ministry responsible for aircraft production and the Admiralty retained...
. Again Cox and Danks flourished as the war ended, disposing of military surplus and salvage. In 1949, Cox sold the firm to Metal Industries Group, who by now owned Alloa Shipbreaking.
Cox spent the remainder of his days supporting charities, organising and giving lectures on deepwater salvage, including the High Seas Fleet.
In failing health, Ernest Cox died in 1959 at the age of seventy-six. Though his salvage business never quite broke even during the course of the salvage of the German fleet (he was ten thousand pounds out of pocket at the sale of his interests), his scrap metal business offset the loss by turning considerable profit; whilst Cox was frequently assumed to be a poor businessman who did not understand business efficiency, it is also true that he suffered from an astonishing amount of bad luck in the varying degrees of difficulty of ship salvage that ensures that no two lifts are ever the same. The rise and fall of the price of scrap frequently ate up the best of his profits during the long salvage operation. Accidents that were as much the fault of the elements as much as human error plagued the salvage. Despite all this, his yard at Lyness
Lyness
Lyness is a village on the east coast of the island of Hoy, Orkney.During the 1920's Lyness was briefly the headquarters of the metal salvage firm of Cox and Danks's raising of the German High Seas Fleet, scuttled by the Germans on June 21st 1919 during the Armistice.During the Second World War it...
on the Orkney Island of Hoy
Hoy
Hoy is an island in Orkney, Scotland. With an area of it is the second largest in the archipelago after the Mainland. It is connected by a causeway called The Ayre to South Walls...
employed 200 workers at the peak of his business, and he was noted for granting holidays with pay during times of financial hardship.
The firm of Cox and Danks Ltd was still in business after 1962; the majority of the GWR King Class locomotives were withdrawn late that year, and ten were allocated to Cox and Danks for disposal (Portraits of Kings; B Holden & K Leech, Moorland Publishing Co.Ltd 1979).
Further reading
Ships scrapped, including MauretaniaMauretania
Mauretania is a part of the historical Ancient Libyan land in North Africa. It corresponds to present day Morocco and a part of western Algeria...
and much of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow. Ships listed with owners and dates sold. (Republished by Peter Rowlands and Stephen Birchall, 1998.)
- The Scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet, 1919 (from BBC's h2g2)
- Scapa Flow Scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet Describes the scuttling of the High Seas Fleet.