"Christopher Cockerell Sir Christopher Sydney Cockerell CBE RDI FRS (4 June 1910 – 1 June 1999) was an English engineer, best known as the inventor of the hovercraft. Cockerell was born in Cambridge, where his father, Sir Sydney Cockerell, was curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum, having previously been the secretary of William Morris. His mother was the illustrator and designer Florence Kingsford Cockerell. Christopher attended the preparatory school of St Faith's. Christopher was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk. He matriculated to Peterhouse, Cambridge to read mechanical engineering and was tutored by William Dobson Womersley. He was later to return"
"Momentum curtain Discovered by British engineer Christopher Cockerell, the momentum curtain is a unique and efficient way to reduce friction between a vehicle and its surface of travel, be it water or land, by levitating the vehicle above this surface via a cushion of air. It is this principle of levitation upon which a hovercraft is based, and Christopher Cockerell set about applying his momentum curtain theory to hovercraft to increase their abilities in overcoming friction in travel. Levitating a vehicle above the ground/water to reduce its drag was not a new concept. John Thornycroft, in 1877, discovered that trapping"
"with a British mechanical engineer Sir Christopher Cockerell. Cockerell's group was the first to develop the use of a ring of air for maintaining the cushion, the first to develop a successful skirt, and the first to demonstrate a practical vehicle in continued use. Cockerell came across the key concept in his design when studying the ring of airflow when high-pressure air was blown into the annular area between two concentric tin cans, one coffee and the other from cat food and a hair dryer. This produced a ring of airflow, as expected, but he noticed an unexpected benefit as"
"as inflatable air cushions, pump-jets and centrifugal fans; these would effectively emerge as a single new form of amphibious vehicle, later known as the hovercraft. Having tested and found substance to his theories during the early 1950s, Cockerell proceeded to approach various aircraft companies and shipbuilders, but had difficult gaining their backing, in part due to a lack of understanding of the technologies involved. Undeterred, his work soon attracted the attention of Lord Mountbatten, the First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy, who arranged for a demonstration of his model to Admiralty representatives and patent officials in 1956. One of"
"pioneering new form of transportation, embodied the form of the experimental SR.N1 vehicle, which became widely known as the hovercraft. British manufacturer Saunders-Roe, whom Cockerell had worked with in order to develop viable hovercraft, soon developed several commercially-viable vehicles, such as the SR.N4, a large cross-Channel ferry capable of seating up to 418 passengers along with 60 cars, and the SR.N6, the first commercially-active hovercraft, capable of seating a maximum of 58 passengers. As a result of high oil prices following the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis, the profitability of the first generation of commercial hovercraft was"
"Stanley Cockerell Captain Stanley Cockerell AFC (9 February 1895 – 29 November 1940) was a British World War I flying ace credited with seven aerial victories. He later became a test pilot for Vickers and attempted the first flight from Cairo to Cape Town. Cockerell was born in Wood Green, London. After leaving school he became a motor engineer. The day after war was declared, Cockerell joined up as a despatch rider in the Royal Flying Corps. In April 1915 he became an air mechanic 2nd class and later that year was promoted to air mechanic 1st class. Cockerell was"
"hut at Writtle and worked on many systems, including radar. After the war he contributed to the development of several very sophisticated pieces of equipment, including radio location technology, and the first equipment used by the BBC in Alexandra Palace. After he left the Marconi Company, he bought Ripplecraft Ltd., a small Norfolk boat and caravan hire company, with a legacy left by his father-in-law. The firm made little money, and Cockerell began to think how the craft could be made to go faster. He was led to earlier work by the Thornycroft company, in which a small vessel had"
"John Cockerell John Cockerell (22 November 1845 – 27 January 1937) was an English amateur athlete who played for England in two of the unofficial football matches against Scotland in 1870 and 1871. Cockerell was born at Camberwell in south London, the only son and third child of John Brand Cockerell and his wife Ellen née Field. His uncle, George Joseph Cockerell, was a highly successful coal merchant who supplied coal to HM Queen Victoria. The family firm was appointed as coal merchants to HM King Edward VII in 1901. Cockerell was an all-round athlete, who ran for the Brixton"
"13 April 1922 he was the pilot for the maiden flight of the Vickers Viking which later that day crashed at Brooklands while being flown by Sir Ross Macpherson Smith, killing Smith and his co-pilot, Lieutenant James Mallett Bennett. He had taken Smith and Bennett as passengers and testified to the inquest that the machine seemed to be in perfect working order. The jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure. Cockerell and his six-year-old daughter Kathleen were killed during World War II in the German bombing of Sunbury on Thames on 29 November 1940. His six surviving children were"
"thus orphaned. Stanley Cockerell Captain Stanley Cockerell AFC (9 February 1895 – 29 November 1940) was a British World War I flying ace credited with seven aerial victories. He later became a test pilot for Vickers and attempted the first flight from Cairo to Cape Town. Cockerell was born in Wood Green, London. After leaving school he became a motor engineer. The day after war was declared, Cockerell joined up as a despatch rider in the Royal Flying Corps. In April 1915 he became an air mechanic 2nd class and later that year was promoted to air mechanic 1st class."
"Andrew, John, Mary Magdalene, Felix, Petronilla, Stephen, Dorothy, Edward the Confessor and George. Somerleyton was the home of Christopher Cockerell while he invented the hovercraft in his post-war career founding in Somerleyton a boatyard and hire business Ripplecraft — cabin cruisers for hire serving holidaymakers cruising the Norfolk Broads. Unveiled in 2010 the Hovercraft Column commemorates Cockerell's invention during this time. The Waveney runs runs west of Somerleyton giving access to the Broads and a rail swing bridge crosses the river in the south-west. This can be viewed from the end of the un-metalled lane starting south of the 'Duke's"
"William Cockerill William Cockerill (1759–1832) was a British inventor and entrepreneur. Designing and producing machines for new industrial textile manufacturing, he is best known for having established a major manufacturing firm in the Liège in modern-day Belgium. He is widely considered to have been instrumental in spreading the Industrial Revolution in Continental Europe William Cockerill was born in Haslingden, Lancashire in 1759, but little is known about his early life. He initially worked as a blacksmith in England and was said to be exceptionally skilled as a mechanical engineer and model maker. He was probably married in this period, but"
"craft using several diesel engines instead of using gas turbine engines, the latter having been used on earlier craft. Since the 1980s, a pair of AP1-88-100s have been operated in Britain by Hovertravel on a route from Southsea in Hampshire to Ryde on the Isle of Wight. Outside of the United Kingdom, vehicles of the type have also been operated in a various of locations around the world, including Norway, Australia, China, and Taiwan. The AP1-88 has been constructed under licence in Australia and China. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, British inventor Sir Christopher Cockerell had developed a"
"Underground is the world's first underground railway. Running along the East Coast Main Line between Edinburgh and London, the ""Flying Scotsman"" has been ranked the world's most famous steam locomotive. Engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, another major figure of the Industrial Revolution, was placed second in a 2002 BBC nationwide poll to determine the ""100 Greatest Britons"". He created the Great Western Railway, as well as famous steamships including the ""SS Great Britain,"" the first propeller-driven ocean-going iron ship, and ""SS Great Eastern"" which laid the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable. Josiah Wedgwood pioneered the industrialisation of pottery manufacture. In 1820,"
"Charles Robert Cockerell Charles Robert Cockerell (27 April 1788 – 17 September 1863) was an English architect, smuggler, and writer. Charles Robert Cockerell was born in London on 27 April 1788, the third of eleven children of Samuel Pepys Cockerell, educated at Westminster School from 1802, where he received an education in Latin and the Classics. From the age of sixteen, he trained in the architectural practice of his father, who held the post of surveyor to East India House, and several London estates. From 1809 to 1810 Cockerell became an assistant to Robert Smirke, helping in the rebuilding of"
"SR.N1 The Saunders-Roe SR.N1 (""Saunders-Roe Nautical 1"") was the first practical hovercraft. The concept has its origins in the work of British engineer and inventor Christopher Cockerell, who succeeded in convincing figures within the services and industry, including those within British manufacturer Saunders-Roe. Research was at one point supported by the Ministry of Defence; this was later provided by the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), who had seen the potential posed by such a craft. In order to test the theories and overall concept, it was decided that the construction of a full-scale craft, designated as the SR.N1. On 11"
"Sir Charles Cockerell, 1st Baronet Sir Charles Cockerell, 1st Baronet (18 February 1755 – 6 January 1837) was a Somerset-born Englishman who prospered as an official of the East India Company (EIC) and became a politician. He sat in the House of Commons for most of the period between 1802 and 1837, sitting for five different constituencies. He was born in Bishop's Hull, Somerset, the son of John Cockerell and Frances, daughter of John Jackson of Clapham. Through his mother Cockerell was the great-great nephew of the diarist Samuel Pepys. After education at Sharpe's school in Bromley-by-Bow and later Winchester"
"the Admiralty observers, Ron Shaw, was impressed by the concept and provided valuable support. The work was classified as an official secret for over four years, but neither the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, or British Army seemingly gave the project any serious interest. Shaw and Cockerell approached Saunders-Roe, who agreed to study the concept and produce a report on it if they were issued with a contract. This arrangement would be the foundation of a long-lasting partnership between Cockerell and Saunders-Roe to develop and sell this new form of transport. In August 1957, an initial contract to perform theoretical"
"Cockerill had three sons: William, Charles James, and John. He also had a daughter, Nancy, who married James Hodson. William Cockerill William Cockerill (1759–1832) was a British inventor and entrepreneur. Designing and producing machines for new industrial textile manufacturing, he is best known for having established a major manufacturing firm in the Liège in modern-day Belgium. He is widely considered to have been instrumental in spreading the Industrial Revolution in Continental Europe William Cockerill was born in Haslingden, Lancashire in 1759, but little is known about his early life. He initially worked as a blacksmith in England and was said"
"major London shipbuilder in the mid to late 19th century. Jacob was an ingenious inventor and made a number of important discoveries. One of these, the atmospheric railway, received at first with considerable opposition, was subsequently adopted as a means of transit by several important companies, the first being Dublin and Kingstown Railway in 1842. Sir Robert Peel later recommended its adoption to the House of Commons and the Board of Trade. The first line to use it in England was from Epsom to London; and later the South Devon Railway adopted the principle of the new invention. Jacob also"
"He died at Surbiton on 27 January 1937. John Cockerell John Cockerell (22 November 1845 – 27 January 1937) was an English amateur athlete who played for England in two of the unofficial football matches against Scotland in 1870 and 1871. Cockerell was born at Camberwell in south London, the only son and third child of John Brand Cockerell and his wife Ellen née Field. His uncle, George Joseph Cockerell, was a highly successful coal merchant who supplied coal to HM Queen Victoria. The family firm was appointed as coal merchants to HM King Edward VII in 1901. Cockerell was"
"engine being used in a mill which made hoops for barrels. London Steam Carriage The London Steam Carriage was an early steam-powered road vehicle constructed by Richard Trevithick in 1803 and the world's first self-propelled passenger-carrying vehicle. Cugnot had built a steam vehicle thirty years previously, but that had been a slow-moving artillery tractor, not built to carry passengers. In 1801, after James Watt's earlier patent on ""a carriage propelled by a steam engine"" had expired, Richard Trevithick constructed an experimental steam-driven vehicle (""Puffing Devil"") at Camborne, Cornwall. It was equipped with a firebox enclosed within the boiler, with one"
"his nephew. He was married to the illuminator and designer Florence Kate Kingsford, who in 1916 was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. They had three children, among them the inventor Christopher Cockerell. Sydney Cockerell Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell (16 July 1867 – 1 May 1962) was an English museum curator and collector. From 1908 to 1937 he was director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in Britain. Sydney Cockerell made his way initially as clerk in the family coal business, George J. Cockerell & Co, until he met John Ruskin. Around 1887, Cockerell sent Ruskin some sea shells, which he collected. At"
"Sydney Cockerell Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell (16 July 1867 – 1 May 1962) was an English museum curator and collector. From 1908 to 1937 he was director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in Britain. Sydney Cockerell made his way initially as clerk in the family coal business, George J. Cockerell & Co, until he met John Ruskin. Around 1887, Cockerell sent Ruskin some sea shells, which he collected. At that time he had already met William Morris. Cockerell tried to patch up a quarrel between Ruskin and Octavia Hill, who had been a friend of his late father Sydney John"
"London Steam Carriage The London Steam Carriage was an early steam-powered road vehicle constructed by Richard Trevithick in 1803 and the world's first self-propelled passenger-carrying vehicle. Cugnot had built a steam vehicle thirty years previously, but that had been a slow-moving artillery tractor, not built to carry passengers. In 1801, after James Watt's earlier patent on ""a carriage propelled by a steam engine"" had expired, Richard Trevithick constructed an experimental steam-driven vehicle (""Puffing Devil"") at Camborne, Cornwall. It was equipped with a firebox enclosed within the boiler, with one vertical cylinder, the motion of the single piston being transmitted directly"
"a rapid rotation of the mould in casting iron pipes, and incurred great expense in securing a patent, only to find that a foreigner, who used the same process in casting terra cotta, had recited in his specifications that the same mode might be applied to metals. The most novel and ingenious of his inventions was the walking machine called the ""Steam Horse"", which he made at Butterley in 1813 for use on the company's tramway at Crich. A second one was built for the Newbottle colliery, which worked with a load up a gradient of 1 in 36 during"
"than the surface needed to support the same vehicle on wheels; hovertrains could be supported on surfaces similar to existing light-duty roadways, instead of the much more complex and expensive railbeds needed to support the weight on two rails. This could greatly reduce infrastructure capital costs. In 1960 several engineers at Christopher Cockerell's Hovercraft Development Ltd. in Hythe, Hampshire, began early studies on the hovertrain concept. At the time, a major problem was selecting a suitable power source. As the hovercraft had no strong contact with a running surface, propulsion was normally provided by an aircraft-like solution, typically a large"
"this time on his architectural practice virtually ceased. The family moved to 13 Chester Terrace, it was here that he died on 17 September 1863, aged 75. He was buried in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, a perk of being the cathedral's surveyor, his marble tomb consists of his profile portrait, suspended from an Ionic column, surrounded by rich embellishment. Cockerell's published works include: Charles Robert Cockerell Charles Robert Cockerell (27 April 1788 – 17 September 1863) was an English architect, smuggler, and writer. Charles Robert Cockerell was born in London on 27 April 1788, the third of eleven"
"expensive. In 1799, George Medhurst of London conceived of and patented an atmospheric railway that could convey people or cargo through pressurized or evacuated tubes. The early atmospheric railways and pneumatic tube transport systems (such as the Dalkey Atmospheric Railway) relied on steam power for propulsion. In 1888, Michel Verne, son of Jules Verne, imagined a submarine pneumatic tube transport system that could propel a passenger capsule at speeds up to 1800 km/h under the Atlantic Ocean in a short story called ""An Express of the Future"". The vactrain proper was invented by Robert Goddard as a freshman at Worcester"
"Christopher Wren and Charles Robert Cockerell, to create impressive compositions. When suitable he could also design in a lively Gothic Revival style, notably the two cemetery railway stations. Some later designs drew directly from the later Renaissance, from what we now call Mannerism and Baroque, notably Bathurst Goal, the Central Police Court and the Rocks Police Station. After his retirement in 1899 he published a short overview of architecture in his adopted colony, entitled ""Architectural work in Sydney, New South Wales, 1788-1899"". He had little time for the new styles of architecture becoming fashionable in Sydney at the end of"
"in 1914. In 1905 Richard Hornsby (1790–1864) & Sons of Grantham (founded 1815) invented a caterpillar track for a machine using Hornsby's oil engines; these engines were developed by Yorkshireman Herbert Akroyd Stuart, from which compression-ignition principle the diesel engine evolved, being manufactured in Grantham from 8 July 1892. Although these engines were not wholly compression-ignition derived, later in 1892 a prototype high-pressure version was built at Hornsby's, developed by Thomas Henry Barton OBE – later to be the founder of Nottingham's Barton Transport, whereby ignition was achieved solely (100%) through compression; it ran continuously for six hours, being the"
"motorcycles, which were considered very reliable and sold under his own name. He later devoted himself to research on diesel engines for aircraft, turbine engines and the Wankel engine. Fritz Cockerell Fritz Cockerell (1889-1965) was a German pioneer of motorcycle, automotive and engine construction. Fritz Cockerell (born 25 November 1889 in Munich, died 16 April 1965) was a German pioneer of motorcycle, automotive and engine construction. His real name was Friedrich Gockerell, but in his published patent documents, he is referred to as Fritz Cockerell. Fritz Cockerell initially worked as a machinist in an airship factory and later in steam"
"around three hours. In June 1843, because of difficulties with Dover harbour, the South Eastern Railway company developed the Boulogne-sur-Mer-Folkestone route as an alternative to Calais-Dover. The first ferry crossed under the command of Captain Hayward. In 1974 a Welsh coracle piloted by Bernard Thomas of Llechryd crossed the English Channel to France in 13½ hours. The journey was undertaken to demonstrate how the Bull Boats of the Mandan Indians of North Dakota could have been copied from coracles introduced by Prince Madog in the 12th century. The Mountbatten class hovercraft (MCH) entered commercial service in August 1968, initially between"