Cockey of Frome  Origins of the family  19th century expansion  20th century 
1. References

2. External links

Cockey of Frome

The early part of the nineteenth century was a hard time for Frome, industry declining over the years as its dependence on the wool trade fell. Yet new businesses arrived and the situation improved. On 10 November 1831, Mr Penny lit his shop on Bath Street with gas for the first time, gas supplied by the upcoming enterprise of a Cockey.^[1]

Origins of the family

Lewis Cockey (1626-1711) was a brazier (a person who works in brass), bellfounder and clocksmith who worked in Warminster. His eldest son, William (1663-1748) became a clockmaker. By 1692 he moved to Wincanton, continuing making clocks (four of his lantern clocks are known today) and casting bells, as well repairing them. The youngest son, Edward (1669-1768) stayed with his father and became notable for his exceptionally complicated astronomical clocks, helped by local patronage, particularly for Lord Weymouth at Longleat.

The second son, Lewis Cockey Junior (1666-1703) was a pewterer and bellfounder who moved to work in Frome in 1682 and was buried in the local church there in 1703.^[2] Lewes lived at 45 Milk Street, known as ‘The Bell House’,^[3] probably using the space at the side, now its garage, for his bell casting.^[4] A foundry was soon established in the appropriately named Bell Lane, since demolished, a short distance from the Bell House.^[5] His son, William continued the family tradition until his death in 1762. At least 23 towers in Somerset and over 40 in Wiltshire and Dorset have Cockey inscriptions on their bells.^[6]

One of the bells in the Chapel of St Lawrence,^[7] Warminster has an inscription, cast by William Cockey, along with other bells in the church cast either by his father or grandfather.^[8]

God made Cockey and Cockey made me

1743^[9]

After 1752 it seems the bells were cast elsewhere, placing the orders and collecting the accounts being undertaken in Frome.

19th century expansion

By 1851 the company was employing 76 men and boys in the Palmer Street foundry, behind Bath Street, as Edward Cockey & Sons.^[12] Gas works were established near the Welshmill and after 1854 a railway siding for coal delivery was installed on the North Somerset Railway.^[13] The company extended its work into iron foundry of all kinds: fences, gates, stairs, balustrades, boilers, valves, steam engines, roofs, gasometers. The firm made mileposts for the Salisbury to Shaftesbury road.^[14] As a growing company it supported the Gas Institute's contribution to the Great Exhibition of 1851.^[15] In 1861 it was exhibiting agricultural equipment at the Royal Agricultural Exhibition in Leeds.^[16] In 1883 it produced the ornate castings for the structure of the Victorian Gallery of Dorset County Museum.

In 1886 Edward Cockey & Sons became a limited company. The foundry in Palmer Street had a space that was too small for their expanding business. In 1893 the work moved to Garston, east of the town centre, on to a new open site. The 1904 25" OS maps shows an Iron Works immediately south of the east-west Frome-Radstock line (the North Somerset Railway), at the western end of the railway triangle, and immediately north of Garston Lane/Garston Street. A siding off the line into the works was constructed. The buildings were mainly concentrated towards the boundaries, leaving plenty of open space to pre-assemble gasometers, before dismantling them for delivery by rail.^[17]

20th century

From 1903 the gas lamp standards of which Cockey erected 200 in Frome were converted to electricity, when a generating station was built and cables laid.^[18] They were then fitted with a replacement art nouveau leaf pattern light socket. 60+ survive today, not all with the leaves, some with obtrusive modern lights, a number in poor condition of paintwork. 20+ are listed Grade II by Historic England but are all wrongly attributed to Singer; a specimen entry illustrating the attribution is the one for the lamp post in front of No 9 Whittox Lane, near the centre of Frome.^[19] The standards are by Cockey, but the manufacturer of the leaf pattern is presently unknown. The town refers to them as 'Cockey Lamps'.

The Frome Gas Company, founded by Cockey, was taken over by that of the Bath Gas, Coke & Light Co; over the years all signs of Frome's gas works were removed. By 1914 they were employing 250 people on the Garston site and elsewhere, working as gas engineers and contractors and making steel work. The foundry was used to pour metal into casts, making gas-holders, regulating valves and tar extractors.^[20] Aside from the foundry there was a pattern shop for the full-size modelling of moulds or casts, a fettling shop for cleaning off the rough edges of castings and a steel plate works. One worker, John Stocker whose father operated the overhead crane in the foundry, said about the premises in 1946:

"There were all these different machines, lathes, milling machines. All the machines were very, very ancient and I think that was probably the reason why they went bust!"^[21]

The family firm wound up voluntarily in April 1960 but its memory remains with bollards, drain covers and lamp standards, many displaying the name.^[22]

Despite Edward having 16 children, there are no Cockeys left in Frome now.

References

External links

• [https://fromemuseum.wordpress.com/ Frome Heritage Museum, Cockey exhibits]
• [https://www.frometowncouncil.gov.uk/frome-directory/fromes-cockey-lamps/] Frome Town Council, Cockey lamps
• [https://www.frometowncouncil.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Frome-Cockey-Lamps-2016.pdf] Photos of Cockey lamps

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