James Cockerill

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Charles James Cockerill

Charles James Cockerill (born May 2, 1787 in Haslingden , Rossendale , Lancashire ; † May 8, 1837 in Aachen ) was an entrepreneur who mainly drove the industrialization of Stolberg and Büsbach in what was then the district of Aachen (now the city of Stolberg (Rhld.) In the urban region of Aachen ). He was the son of the machine manufacturer William Cockerill, Senior, and Elisabeth (Betty) Charles, and brother of William Cockerill, Junior and John Cockerill , who came from England and worked in Verviers and Liège .

Live and act

At a young age, James joined the textile machine factory founded by his father in Verviers in 1797, which he took over with his younger brother John in 1807 after their father had built a new factory in Liège. While John had followed his father to Liège in 1810, where he initially took over the technical management of the factory, James stayed in Verviers and obtained numerous orders on many advertising trips in France and Germany. In 1811 James Cockerill, his father and his brother John were granted French citizenship in recognition of their achievements. Finally, James and his brother John took over the overall management of the Liège plant in 1813 after their father had gradually withdrawn from the operational business.

In addition, a year later, James Cockerill and his brother John set up a modern wool spinning and mechanical engineering company in a former barracks in Berlin and made a significant contribution to the progress of Berlin's economy. While the finest yarns for fine cloth were produced in the spinning mill, the machine factory produced a wide range of modern machines and tools, mainly for textile production, which found good sales in Prussia and outside the country's borders and made a major contribution to modernizing the Prussian economy. After a large part of the Berlin works had been destroyed by a fire in November 1831, the brothers John and James rebuilt the factory, but due to bureaucratic obstacles they felt compelled to end their Berlin activities in 1836 and to sell the factory facilities

Headquarters, castle and main factory in Seraing

After John Cockerill had also acquired Seraing Castle in 1817 from William I , the King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands , and converted it into the main iron-making factory and, based on the considerable hard coal deposits, the camps were located in an east-west direction Stretched almost through the whole of Belgium, the brothers together built the largest iron foundry and machine factory in Europe, which formed the cornerstone for the development of a widespread company and from which the Cockerill-Sambre coal and steel company later developed, whose main market was France. The investment amounted to 17 million French francs . In addition to the two coal mines and an ore mine, blast furnaces , a steel and rolling mill, a boiler forge and a machine factory were operated. Around 2500 people were employed in the Cockerill company.

City palace Cokerill, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz 7 in Aachen, later the house of the recreation society

In 1823 James Cockerill left the joint Liège / Serainger company and sold his shares to the Dutch King Wilhelm I. He now shifted his activities mainly to the Aachen and Stolberg area, but two years later he and his brother were granted the concession for the lead mine in Plombières , where work was not stopped until 1922. In Aachen, James initially ran a wool spinning mill with an attached textile machine factory. Among other things, he equipped the Nellessen cloth factory in Aachen with these machines , whose workers then allied themselves with other factory workers and later in the course of the Aachen uprising on August 30, 1830 in front of the house of the James Cockerill family at Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz 7 from 1837 the "House of the Recreational Society" moved because they made him responsible for the falling wages and the competition from the machines. They almost completely destroyed and looted his city palace and the inventory and it was only with the help of the police and a vigilante group that the riot could be put down and production restarted in the factory.

Also in 1830 Cockerill acquired the concession for the Münsterkohlberg , where he initiated the large-scale coal mining in the Stolberg area with the James mine named after him . He was also involved in the Ath, Bardenberg and Neu-Voccart mines in Herzogenrath-Straß as well as the Kämpchen and Kircheich mines in Kohlscheid . He also set up a glassworks in the Stolberg district of Münsterbusch in 1835 , which was only operated until 1850 and the ensemble of buildings today serves as the Zinkhütter Hof Museum .

From 1831 onwards, James Cockerill endeavored to build a railway line from Aachen via Maastricht to Belgium, but this was initially rejected by the responsible authorities because they feared sheer self-interest. Only in 1846 could the project be realized by the newly founded Aachen-Maastricht Railway Company . Instead, Cockerill had a road built from Stolberg via Eilendorf , where his brother John ran the Herrenberg Galmeigrube mine, to Aachen in 1836 to transport the coal , which was transferred to the Metallurgische Gesellschaft zu Stolberg in 1843 and for which road usage fees had to be paid until 1892. In the Stolberg area, this street still bears Cockerill's name today, whereas in the Eilendorfer area it was later renamed “von Coels-Straße”.

After the association for hard coal mining in the Wurmrevier was founded in 1836 with financial support from James Cockerill, he transferred part of his mines to this company, while the James mine was integrated into the Metallurgical Society in Stolberg, which was founded in 1838, three years after his death in 1837 whose main financier was also James Cockerill posthumously.

In his free time, James Cockerill was intensely involved in horse racing and maintained a successful stud at his Berensberg Castle . After his father had already introduced horse races based on the English model in the Belgian seaside resort of Spa , James was one of the co-initiators of the races on the Brander Heide just outside the city of Aachen in 1821 . This racing tradition was later continued by Cockerill's grandchildren, the gentlemen's riders Henry and Otto Suermondt .

In addition, James Cockerill had been a member of Club Aachener Casino since 1819 .

family

James Cockerill married Caroline Elisabeth Pastor (1791-1836), daughter of the Burtscheider cloth manufacturer Philipp Heinrich Pastor (1752-1821), in September 1813 , while his brother John married her sister Johanna Friederike Pastor (1795-1850). James and Caroline had three sons and three daughters each:

  • Charles (July 1814-August 1814) was only two months old
  • Amalie Elisabeth (1815-1859) later married the entrepreneur and patron of the arts Barthold Suermondt , who after James Cockerill's death was responsible for the management of the family's fortune and who, along with his brothers, was the sole heir of the childless John Cockerill.
  • Nancy Friederika (1816–1854), married the mining industrialist Max Haniel (1813–1887), son of the entrepreneur Franz Haniel .
  • Charles James (1817–1874) and later manor owner married the daughter of a manufacturer, Louise Wagner (1817–1874).
  • Caroline (1819–1867), married the banker Karl Suermondt (1822–1909), a brother of Barthold Suermondt.
  • Philipp Heinrich Cockerill (1821–1903) initially became a co-owner of the Cockerill works in Seraing and, after his marriage to Thusnelde Emilie Haniel (1830–1903), sister of the aforementioned Max Haniel, the “ Zollverein ”, “ Rheinpreussen ”, the trade union “ Neumühl ”, the“ Gutehoffnungshütte ”and the company Franz Haniel & Cie. in Ruhrort .

Around 1820, James Cockerill acquired the city palace at Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz No. 7 in Aachen and the estate in Berensberg on the outskirts of Laurensberg from Offermann's widow . In order to avoid the unrest caused by the Belgian Revolution , Cockerill's father, who was now widowed and actually lived in Spa , spent his old age on Berensberg from 1830 until his death in 1832 .

In addition, James Cockerill took over Alensberg Castle in Moresnet near Plombières in 1823 , which he later transferred to his daughter Caroline and her husband Karl Suermondt in his will. After Karl's death, the property was first transferred to his son Armand (1849–1921), who extensively restored the castle and, after his death, to his brother Arthur (1845–1922). However, he died just a year later and his family then put the property up for sale.

James and Caroline Cockerill themselves found their final resting place as a hereditary burial in the crypt of the Pastor family at the Heissbergfriedhof Burtscheid / Aachen .

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Cockerill, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cockerill, Charles James (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1787
PLACE OF BIRTH Haslingden , Lancashire
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1837
Place of death Aachen