Background
William Cockerill was born in Haslingden, Lancashire, England in 1759.
William Cockerill was born in Haslingden, Lancashire, England in 1759.
He was instrumental in founding the industrial spinning industry in continental Europe. He began his working career as a blacksmith in England, and was said to be exceptionally skilled as a mechanical engineer although he met little success in England. In 1794 he travelled to Saint St. Petersburg, Russia having been recommended for his skill to Catherine World War II Later after the Empresses" death Paul I of Russia sent him to prison for failing to construct a prototype on time.
He escaped to Sweden, where he was employed as an engineer, constructing locks on a canal.
Civil engineering did not suit him, and, having heard of the woollen industry in Liège and Verviers he decided that he could be successful as a machine maker there. First he travelled to Hamburg, and since machine design was a closely guarded industry from which England profited he proposed to the British envoy there, a Mr.
Crawford, to return to England and not aid a foreign country if he was given a pension on his return. Though the envoy approved and forwarded his intentions, he had heard nothing after six months and so went to the low countries, first to Amsterdam, then to the province of Liège.
In 1799, he began manufacturing machines (for the spinning and carding of wool in Verviers for the cloth manufacturers Iwan Simonis and François Biolley.
He then brought his family from England and settled in Belgium. He was joined in 1802 by James Holden, first as his assistant, and who later set up his own business. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by Napoleon, for his services to manufacturing in 1807 and in 1810 he became a Belgian citizen, and in 1813 imported a Watt steam engine.
He died in 1832 at Chateau de Berensberg (Schloß Berensberg), Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen).