Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell (16 July 1867 – 1 May 1962) was an English museum curator and collector. From 1908 to 1937, he was director of the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities University museum, museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard ...

Cambridge, England Cambridge ( ) is a city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of ...

. He was knighted in 1934.

Biography

Sydney Cockerell made his way initially as a clerk in the family coal business, George J. Cockerell & Co., until he met

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...

. Around 1887, Cockerell sent Ruskin some

sea shell A seashell or sea shell, also known simply as a shell, is a hard, protective outer layer usually created by an animal or organism that lives in the sea. Most seashells are made by mollusks, such as snails, clams, and oysters to protect ...

s, which he collected. At that time he had already met

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...

. Cockerell tried to patch up a quarrel between Ruskin and

Octavia Hill Octavia Hill (3December 183813August 1912) was an English Reform movement, social reformer and founder of the National Trust. Her main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteent ...

, who had been a friend of his late father Sydney John Cockerell, and godmother to his sister, Olive. From 1891, Cockerell gained a more solid entry to intellectual circles, working for the

Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) (also known as Anti-Scrape) is an amenity society founded by William Morris, Philip Webb, and others in 1877 to oppose the Victorian restoration, destructive 'restoration' of ancient bu ...

. The architect Detmar Blow was a friend. He acted as private secretary to William Morris, becoming a major collector of

Kelmscott Press The Kelmscott Press, founded by William Morris and Emery Walker, published 53 books in 66 volumes between 1891 and 1898. Each book was designed and ornamented by Morris and printed by hand in limited editions of around 300. Many books were illus ...

books; was secretary also to

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (17 August 1840 – 10 September 1922), sometimes spelt Wilfred, was an English poet and writer. He and his wife Lady Anne Blunt travelled in the Middle East and were instrumental in preserving the Arabian horse bloodlines ...

; and was

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

's executor. From 1908 to 1937, Cockerell was Director of the

, in Cambridge. He built up the museum's collections of private-press books and manuscripts, prints, drawings, paintings (including Titian's ''Tarquin and Lucretia''), ceramics and antiquities. It was he who secured the museum's rich holdings of works by

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...

and who bought its first Picasso print. He raised funds for building extensions, set up the first 'Friends' scheme in Britain and introduced Sunday opening. Cockerell appears as one of a circle of three figures in the book by Dame

Felicitas Corrigan Dame Felicitas Corrigan OSB (6 March 1908 – 7 October 2003, Kathleen Corrigan) was an British Benedictine nun, author and humanitarian. Biography Corrigan was born in Liverpool in 1908 to a large family. She learned to play the organ at an ...

, ''The Nun, the Infidel, and the Superman'', with Dame

Laurentia McLachlan Dame Laurentia McLachlan, OSB, ''née'' Margaret McLachlan, (11 January 1866 – 23 August 1953) was a Scottish Benedictine nun, Abbess of Stanbrook Abbey, and an authority on church music. She became posthumously known to a wide public when p ...

and

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...

. It was later dramatised by

Hugh Whitemore Hugh John Whitemore (16 June 1936 – 17 July 2018) was an English playwright and screenwriter. Early life and education Born at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, son of Samuel George Whitemore (1907-1987), a clerk at an oil company, and Kathleen Alma, né ...

as ''The Best of Friends'', which was produced on stage at the

Hampstead Theatre Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in South Hampstead, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. History The original ''Hampstead Theatre Clu ...

in 2006 and on television in 1991. According to

Penelope Fitzgerald Penelope Mary Fitzgerald (17 December 1916 – 28 April 2000) was a Booker Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and biographer from Lincoln, England. In 2008 ''The Times'' listed her among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". ''The Ob ...

's biography of

Charlotte Mew Charlotte Mary Mew (15 November 1869 – 24 March 1928) was an English poet whose work spanned the eras of Victorian poetry and Modernism. Early life and education Mew was born in Bloomsbury, London, daughter of the architect Frederick Mew ( ...

, ''Charlotte Mew and Her Friends'' (1984), "Cockerell was one of the six children of a Brighton

coal merchant A coal merchant is the term used in the UK and other countries for a trader who sells coal and often delivers it to households. Coal merchants were once a major class of local business, but have declined in importance in many parts of the developed ...

who died quite young. This meant a hard start, but, as he told his biographer, Wilfred Blunt, 'I was protected by poverty from marriage until I was forty.' During that time he was able to develop his two ruling passions - the arts (or rather the classification and collecting of them), and the cultivating of great men. When he became Director of the Fitzwilliam in 1908 he identified the museum entirely with himself, and heroic indeed were his efforts to tap bequests, endowments, and death-bed legacies which would enrich it in every department. He calculated that during his lifetime he had made a quarter of a million pounds for the Fitzwilliam, and about a dozen enemies." The 2003–2004 Sandars Readership in Bibliography held by Christopher de Hamel examined the life of Cockerell and his work with illuminated manuscripts, his career at the Museum, and as a private collector. Cockerell was a member of the

Red Rose Guild The Red Rose Guild was a guild based in Manchester, with the aim to promote British arts and crafts. It was “regarded as the most influential national outlet for makers” in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century. The Guild was ...

Family

He was the son of Sydney John Cockerell (1842–1877) and Alice Elizabeth Bennett, daughter of John Bennett. The bee expert

Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell (22 August 1866 – 26 January 1948) was an American entomologist and Systematics, systematic biologist who published nearly 4,000 papers, some of them only a few lines long. Cockerell's speciality was the insect or ...

, who settled in the United States, was his brother, as was the bookbinder Douglas Bennett Cockerell. He was a year older than his sister Olive Juliet. The bookbinder Sandy Cockerell (Sydney Morris Cockerell) was his nephew. He was married to the illuminator and designer

Florence Kate Kingsford Florence Kate Kingsford, Lady Cockerell (25 May 1871 – 18 September 1949), known variously as Florence Kingsford and Kate Cockerell, was a British illustrator and calligrapher who specialized in creating illuminated manuscripts. She worked ...

, who in 1916 was diagnosed with

multiple sclerosis Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease resulting in damage to myelinthe insulating covers of nerve cellsin the brain and spinal cord. As a demyelinating disease, MS disrupts the nervous system's ability to Action potential, transmit ...

. They had two daughters, Margaret and Katharine, and a son,

Christopher Cockerell Sir Christopher Sydney Cockerell (4 June 1910 – 1 June 1999) was an English engineer, best known as the inventor of the hovercraft. Early life and education Cockerell was born in Cambridge, where his father, Sir Sydney Cockerell, was curat ...

, who invented the

hovercraft A hovercraft (: hovercraft), also known as an air-cushion vehicle or ACV, is an amphibious craft capable of travelling over land, water, mud, ice, and various other surfaces. Hovercraft use blowers to produce a large volume of air below the ...

Ancestry

Sources

Online Archive of California

References

External links

Cockerell Papers — Archive Descriptions

University of Exeter The University of Exeter is a research university in the West Country of England, with its main campus in Exeter, Devon. Its predecessor institutions, St Luke's College, Exeter School of Science, Exeter School of Art, and the Camborne School of ...

*
Sydney Cockerell Papers
(MS Eng 1106),

Houghton Library Houghton Library, on the south side of Harvard Yard adjacent to Widener Library, Lamont Library, and Loeb House, is Harvard University's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library s ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...