EAW025111 ENGLAND (1949). The Eagle Steelworks, Stoke Bathing Place and Cliff Quay, Ipswich, from the north-west, 1949. This image has been produced from a print marked by Aerofilms Ltd for photo editing.

The Eagle Steelworks. Cocksedge Engineering in Rapier Street.



In 1879 Mr James Samuel Cocksedge moved from Stowmarket to Ipswich, bought a small engineering works situated in Grey Friars Road and founded Cocksedge and Company Limited. At Stowmarket he had been a partner in another engineering business known as Woods and Co.



The business in Grey Friars Road consisted of a small foundry, a pattern shop and an engineering shop and it employed 12 men. A few years later Mr Cocksedge took his son, Mr James Woods Arthur Cocksedge into partnership. Mr JWA Cocksedge had for some years previously been gaining experience with two large engineering firms in London. Business increased and when the original premises became too small they were supplemented by the acquisition of an additional building situated on the other side of the road.



Mr JS Cocksedge died in 1887. Up to that time the business had been a general engineering one and accepted any work that, by a stretch of the imagination, could be called engineering. It was then, when the younger son, Mr EH Cocksedge returned from India, where he had been concerned with structural work, that the policy of the firm was somewhat altered. Realising the opening for structural engineering in Ipswich and neighbourhood, they decided to meet the need. That step was perhaps the second foundation of the firm, as, although Cocksedge and Company still tackled any engineering job that was in itself a practicable proposition, their name could now found on the steel structures of unfinished buildings. Three of the stands at Newmarket were erected by them, as also were the Colchester by-pass bridge, Fison, Packard and Prentice's fertiliser factory at Ipswich, the Silver Queen Bus Station at Clacton, the Playhouse, Colchester, the Band-stand, Dovercourt, numerous garages, the Ipswich Town Football Club grandstand, aerodromes, warehouses, barns and covered riding schools. The company has manufactured and erected some of the largest steel structures in East Anglia.



In 1900 a further expansion of premises had to be made and new buildings were erected in Rapier Street. These became the main works and the original two buildings served as offices and stores. At the time this photo was taken, everything from cranes to road signs were being produced by the company.



The company folded (1985) in the recession of the early 1980s.