Sir Christopher Sydney Cockerell was born on June 4, 1910, and died on June 1, 1999. He was an English engineer who is famous for creating the hovercraft.

Early life and education

Cockerell was born in Cambridge. His father, Sir Sydney Cockerell, was the curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum. Before that, he was the secretary of William Morris. His mother was an illustrator and designer named Florence Kingsford Cockerell. Christopher attended a preparatory school called St Faith's. He was educated at Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk. He was admitted to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to study mechanical engineering. Later, he returned to Cambridge to study radio and electronics.

Early career

He started his career as a graduate student working for W. H. Allen, Sons & Co. in Bedford from 1931 to 1933. In 1934, he returned to the University of Cambridge to study radio and electronics. Later that year, he began working at the Radio Research Station. In 1935, he joined the Marconi Company and married Margaret Elinor Belsham, who was born on September 4, 1913, and died in September 1996. From 1940 to 1951, the couple lived in Gay Bowers Cottage in Danbury, Essex, a building now listed as Grade II.

While working in Chelmsford, he led a research team at the Marconi hut in Writtle and worked on systems such as radar. After World War II, he helped develop advanced equipment, including radio location technology and the first tools used by the BBC at Alexandra Palace.

Hovercraft

After Cockerell left the Marconi Company, he purchased Ripplecraft Ltd., a small Norfolk business that rented boats and caravans, using money left to him by his father-in-law. The company earned little money, and Cockerell began thinking about how to make the boats faster. He studied earlier work by the Thornycroft company, where a small boat had been partially lifted out of the water by a small engine. Cockerell’s most important invention, the hovercraft, came from this research. He believed that if the entire boat were lifted out of the water, it would have no drag, allowing it to move much faster than existing boats.

Cockerell thought that instead of simply pumping air under the boat, as Thornycroft had done, directing the air into a narrow jet around the boat’s edge would create a moving wall of air that would reduce air loss. This idea meant a smaller engine could maintain a high-pressure air cushion, allowing the boat to lift completely out of the water. Cockerell tested his designs on a village green near his home in Somerleyton, Suffolk.

He tested his ideas using a vacuum cleaner and two tin cans. His hypothesis showed promise, but it took years to develop, and he sold personal items to fund his research. By 1955, he built a working model from balsa wood and filed his first patent for the hovercraft, No. GB 854211. Cockerell struggled to interest private companies in his invention, as the aircraft and shipbuilding industries considered it unrelated to their work.

He then approached the British Government, hoping to gain support for defense uses. Government leaders were uninterested and classified the hovercraft idea as a secret. This classification prevented Cockerell from sharing his design publicly. The idea remained secret until 1958, when similar developments in Europe were reported. It was then declassified, and Cockerell met with the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC). In 1958, the NRDC ordered Saunders-Roe to build the first full-scale hovercraft, called the SR.N1. The SR.N1 was tested publicly on 11 June 1959, traveling at 28 miles per hour and carrying four people. A few weeks later, it crossed the English Channel from Calais to Dover on 25 July 1959, exactly 50 years after Louis Bleriot’s historic flight.

In January 1959, the NRDC created a company called Hovercraft Development Ltd., with Cockerell as its Technical Director. The company managed patents and allowed private firms to produce hovercrafts under the Hovercraft trademark. In 1971, Cockerell received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University.

Later life

In his later years, Cockerell made many improvements to the hovercraft and created other uses for the air cushion principle, such as the hovertrain. He attended events related to hovercrafts, including the opening of hoverports in the United Kingdom.

After a brief illness, Cockerell passed away in Hythe, Hampshire on June 1, 1999, three days before his 89th birthday.

Cockerell received £5,000 from the British government in the 1960s, which was the only official recognition of the importance of his work. He was also given a knighthood.

Other work

Later in his life, Cockerell created the Cockerell Raft, a wave power hydraulic device. This invention could be important for generating electricity in the future.

Awards

• 1965 Received the Howard N. Potts Medal
• 1966 Received a CBE
• 1967 Chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society
• 1968 Received the Elmer A. Sperry Award for developing the Hovercraft
• 1969 Knighted for his work in engineering

Commemoration

The SR.N4 hovercraft named GH2008 Sir Christopher was named after its inventor. It was operated by Hoverlloyd, which later became Hoverspeed, across the English Channel from 1972 to 1991.

A plaque in Cockerell Rise, East Cowes, Isle of Wight, marks the location of White Cottage, where Cockerell lived and worked. The cottage has been taken down, but the garage still remains. The plaque was placed there by Friends of East Cowes, with help from the Big Lottery Fund.

After Cockerell’s death in 1999, his workshop, including his left-handed lathe, was donated to the Lowestoft Maritime Museum. It was reassembled and is now displayed to the public.