Malcolm Cooper’s life is a rich tapestry woven through Hull’s maritime heritage, engineering innovation, and personal dedication.
Leaving school at just 15, Malcolm began his journey as an apprentice at C D Holmes. By 21, he was working on the iconic Arctic Corsair at Prince’s Dock, fitting its main engine - a pivotal experience that marked the beginning of his lifelong connection to the sea.
His career took a new turn when he joined the Merchant Navy, before love led him back to shore and to his wife, Diane. Malcolm then joined his father-in-law’s haulage company, distributing fresh fish across the country. As refrigeration technology advanced, the business evolved to focus on frozen products, and Malcolm played a key role in its growth and success.
After retiring from the haulage industry, Malcolm pursued his passion for history, earning a 2:1 degree in Historical Studies. He has volunteered as a lighthouse keeper at Spurn Point for the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and as a police volunteer, though these activities paused during the global pandemic. His love for travel and learning continues to shape his life.
Malcolm’s deep-rooted interest in Hull’s maritime legacy is also a family affair. He proudly shares the story of his great-grandfather, George Moxon Cooper, who in the early 1900s established two dry docks on the River Hull - first on Tower Street, followed by the Lime Street yard.
The following narration, originally published by Norwood Press around 1975, was written by Malcolm’s grandfather, Thomas Henry Cooper, and offers a personal glimpse into the legacy of a family that played a part in Hull’s maritime history.
George Cooper
George Cooper was born in Stainforth near Doncaster in 1870 and served seven years apprenticeship as a shipwright at a small shipyard on the canal between Stainforth and Thorne. On completion of his apprenticeship his master asked him to stay on and continue work for him, bit at a reduced rate of pay. This he refused and came to Hull, where he worked for a time at Earle’s shipyard on the river Humber (the last great shipbuilding yard in Hull, which built nearly 7000 ships of many types between 1953 and 1931). He soon realised, however, that to hold a job down one had to keep on the right side of the foreman and drop him something on the side at the end of the week. Sooner than resort to this sort of thing, he left and eventually started doing freelance work on the docks and harbour, transporting his tools from place to place on his back.
He was so successful in this venture that owners informed him he would have to get a dry dock, as other dry dock firms complained about him doing all the comparatively clean top repairs to craft, as against repairs which required dry docking.
He eventually managed to rent a very old and dilapidated floating dock on Lime Street, owned by William Nettleton and Sons, hay and straw dealers in Hodgson Street and owners of three or four sloops which carried manure to the farms up the Rivers Trent and Ouse. The floating dock was badly in need of extensive repairs, and when a vessel was placed on for repairs it leaked so badly that it had to be baled out constantly to keep it afloat. The owners of the floating dock were not prepared to spend money on repairing it, so that he began looking around for other accommodation.
Eventually he came across the Tower Street property which was derelict for a number of years and was owned by a firm of seed merchants and warehousemen in High Street. The dry dock was in very poor state of repair, being half filled with mud and silt. The wooden side piling and shuttering was rotted and the dock gates has collapsed. However, he decided to settle and negotiated a nominal rent, until the time of production. With the assistance of his friends and family from his native villages of Thorne and Stainforth, he began to clear the dock in his spare time, in the evenings and weekends. Eventually, after weeks of back breaking work, he managed to clear the dock, but unfortunately the rotted timbers of the sides gave way and caved in, so he had to set to and clear the debris, shore up and renew the timbering. However, he eventually managed to build and install new dock gates and commenced business in the year of 1900.
From this time onwards, the business prospered, and owners of river craft had to wait in turn for their repairs to be carried out. Between 1900 and 1916 a number of wooden barges were constructed for MR J. H. Whitaker which more or less laid the foundation of the present firm J.H. Whitaker Ltd. Three wooden boats were also built for Messrs Major and Co bulk carriers for transporting creosote and tar to Knottingly and Doncaster etc. These craft were the first of their kind in the district for carrying liquids in bulk.
What machinery there was consisted of a small Lanchashire boiler which Mr Cooper purchased secondhand from the laundry department of the Royal Infirmary. It was used to drive a small engine to work a circular saw, The exhaust steam from the engine was piped to a wooden steam chest and was used for bending and shaping of wood planking for building and repairing barges. In those early days we had no such machine as a bandsaw, and all timber used in building had to be shaped and cut out of round timber either adze or by pit saw. All the necessary ironwork such knee, rudder gudgeons and straps, bolts etc were all forged by hand in the blacksmith’s shop.
The working staff in my apprentice days consisted of shipwrights and apprentices, blacksmiths, joiners, sawyers (both pit and circular) and labourer for scaling and painting, with a working foreman in charge. There were 100 personnel in Tower Street alone and I remember a time when four vessels were under construction at the same time and vessels awaiting repair berthed up river as far as the Victoria Dock basin. In those days apprentices had to serve seven years and received a most thorough training in all the aspects of wooden shipbuilding, having to serve part of their time in a blacksmith’s shop, and also assisting the sawyers both in the pit and behind the circular saw. In the third year of apprenticeship they were allowed to assist a shipwright and in the 5th year they were expected to do the work of a time served shipwright. The working hours were from 6am – 5pm with a break of half an hour for breakfast and one hour for lunch; Saturday 6am to 12noon.
An apprentice’s wage commenced at 5 shillings per week rising by a shilling yearly until his 7th year when he received 12/6 per weeks and the 30/- when his time was completed. Money was tight in those days and many bad debts accumulated. I recollect one particular pay day when a customer had failed to pay a promised cheque into the bank. My father had to meet the men with an apology and explain that he was not able to pay their wages until the following Monday. In those early years I cannot recall any sign of trouble or unrest among them. On another more happy occasion the whole staff with their families were invited to join together in an outing to Beverley Westwood, where tea and sports were indulged in. I remember 12 horse drawn charabancs were hired on that occasion. My father had among his staff the son and grandsons of his late employers, with whom he served his apprenticeship at Stainforth.
In those days he lived on Lister Street, off Hessle Road, I can well recollect my mother, when a launching occurred, having to stay up most of the night making sandwiches and baking cakes for the launching breakfast, and it was mine and my brother’s task to help transport the stuff by way of Humber Street and over the old South Bridge better known then as Halfpenny Toll Bridge – along the harbour side for an 8am launching.
The Tower Street premises in those days extended as far as the old Humber Conservatory Shed and on land now occupied by a sand and gravel firm. On this land we had what we called the timber field, Where English timer was stowed prior to being sent to the sawmill to be cut into various thickness of planking and timbers suitable for shipbuilding and repairs. In those days my father travelled up and down the countryside selecting and purchasing growing trees, and he had staff for felling, dressing and leading the timber by his own horses and timber wheels. We apprentices used to think ourselves fortunate if we were chosen to assist with the timber felling in the country, the only snag being that it took place in the wintertime amidst frost and snow. The loading and transporting of the timber was left until the springtime when the ground was more suitable.
The 1914-18 war period saw the yards commandeered by the Admiralty, and we worked night and days shifts converting barges into mine carrying vessels and also repairing small coasters and tugs etc. During my period my father occupied most of his time travelling up and down the east coast surveying and costing for the Admiralty, and occasionally I had to go with him as an assistant.
Lime Street Yard
This was taken over in 1910 owing to expansion of work at Tower Street. It was probably built in the 18th century to accommodate the whalers of that period, hence the width of the dry dock. The sides of the dock were lined with hand-made red bricks of that period, which eventually deteriorated and were replaced in the 1950s with the present type of brick. The old dry dock gates were badly worn and rotted in places, and had to be made water-tight with sackings and rope etc. They eventually collapsed inboard on a very high spring tide in 1917, crushing a steam launch beyond repair and also released a BOCM barge which came of the dock and was eventually picked up beyond the Scott Street bridge.
Incidentally, your narrator along with his brother was busy stopping leaks in the dock bottom minutes before the gates collapse. Eventually new gates were built on the premises and lasted until the Blitz of 1941, when they received a direct hit from a H.E. bomb and were destroyed along with a vessel moored alongside the jetty. The present dock bottom is built over the original one to lift it above the river bed, so that water in the dry dock can run off at low tide. The original dry dock bottom some 3ft lower down and is constructed of timber with timbered sides and is probably the bottom and bilge sections of some old sailing ship or schooner.
The work in this yard consisted mostly of repairs to barges and steam tugs, with an occasional schooner or sailing vessel which had to be dry docked with the bowsprit overhanging the street. Prior to taking over in 1910, the premises had been occupied by a firm named Hunt & Fowler Ltd, who installed some second-hand steel shipbuilding machinery, namely a punch and shearing machine, plate rolls and a drilling machine, all powered by an old Lancashire boiler driving an old beam engine with a 40ft belt drive. They also installed a plate and angle furnace with the necessary bending blocks. This firm built two or three vessels of the sloop type before liquidating.
Thus when George Cooper took over the yard he was more or less equipped for steel building and repairs. At that period, he had the monopoly of repairs to most of the small craft operating in Hull and the vicinity, which included the Humber Conservatory vessels, lightships and light buoys, customs launches and the steam and paddle tugs of the firm – then Geo Gray and Sons – which later became the United Towing Co Ltd.
The years to 1917 to 1920 saw the building of a new floating dock, also two dumb barges. The tug and barges were all built of mild steel furnaced plates, hand riveted caulked. In 1918, the Yorkshire Dry Dock Co Ltd was formed and was run mainly for the maintenance of J.H Whitaker Ltd’s barges and tugs.
By Tom Cooper, 1975.
Our thanks go to Malcolm Cooper for sharing his family's story.
