Cowper Phipps Coles
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Captain Cowper Phipps Coles, C.B., R.N. (1819 - September 7, 1870), the son of the Reverend John Coles and his wife Mary Ann Goodhew Rogers, was an English naval captain and inventor.
He entered the Royal Navy at the age of eleven. Coles distinguished himself at the siege of Sevastopol' during the 1850s in the Crimean War against Russia. It was at this time that he and other British naval officers and sailors constructed a raft named the Lady Nancy which sported a rotating protective turret. After the war, Coles patented his design for a rotating turret.
His revolutionary turret design got the ball rolling for the British Navy to begin looking at ways to adopt it. Several early naval vessels, such as Prince Albert and Royal Sovereign, were constructed or modified and incorporated Coles designs. He pressed, however, for the British Admiralty to allow him to build a low-freeboard turret warship and in 1866 the British Navy finally agreed.
Coles became the lead designer for HMS Captain. The ship used most of Coles design. However, extensive rigging was necessary to make the ship ocean-going. This forced the creation of a "hurricane deck" above the turrets, which raised the center of gravity of the vessel. That was one of the key reasons why Captain capsized on the night of September 6, 1870, which took Coles' life.
In 1856, Coles married Emily Pearson, niece of Admiral Lord Lyons. Coles was himself a nephew, by marriage, of Admiral Lord Lyons, his mother being the sister of Augusta, Lyons' wife.
[edit] Issue
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cowper Bickerton Cowper-Coles | 1857 | 1920 | married 1895, Maud Beatrice Cresswell |
| Fanny Augusta Cowper-Coles | 1859 | 1951 | married 1877, Admiral Sir Baldwin Wake-Walker, CMG, CVO, 2nd Baronet |
| Rogers Lyons Cowper-Coles | 1860 | 1915 | married 1884, Margaret Lucie Dawes |
| Alice Mary Cowper-Coles | 1861 | 1910 | |
| Minna Spencer Cowper-Coles | 1864 | 1948 | married 1892, Walter Vernon Anson |
| Samuel Hood Cowper-Coles | 1866 | 1932 | married 1892, Hon. Edith Bailey, daughter of 1st Lord Glanusk |
| Sherard Osborn Cowper-Coles | 1866 | 1936 | married 1919, Constance Hamilton Watts |
| William Burgoyne Cowper-Coles | 1867 | married 1891, Rebecca Smith | |
| Commerell Markham Cowper-Coles | 1869 |
