Locomotive Superintendents

Producing such a document nowadays, with the aid of a computer, would be very much easier than it was then, and yet how often does anyone bother?

 

Aye, but that'd be flat 2D laser printing on, best case, 200gsm A4, not the wonderfully tactile bold printing of yore, on a quality heavy vellum or parchmemt. In my possession is a magnificent document awarded to my long departed grandmother, on her retirement (after two world wars) from nursing. It still occupies the inscribed blue tube it originally came in.

 

A question for the LNWR-minded.
I've been looking at the list of members of the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps and I see that Charles John Bowen Cooke was given a Major's commission on 1/1/1916 (which he held until he died in 1920).
The unit history gives his name as above, as does the London Gazette of 31/12/1915. However I have seen it written as a double-barreled name, so is he Mr. Cooke, or Mr. Bowen-Cooke?
Pat

 

I don't think the hyphen should be there. Although often given as C.J. Bowen Cooke, I have always seen him referred to, if by surname only, as Mr Cooke, otherwise C.J.B. Cooke.

 

Thanks for that. It was only idle curiosity on my part, but I've seen how even the LG can fluff peoples names.
Pat

 

He wrote a book 'British Locomotives: Their history, construction, and modern development' published in 1893 and on the title page it is by 'C.J. Bowen Cooke'. A touching memorial to him from the LNWR in St Just's churchyard in Roseland, Cornwall is to 'Charles John Bowen Cooke' and he also had a Claughton dedicated to him after his death ( LNWR 2059 ) 'C.J. Bowen Cooke' so all without a hyphen.

E.L. Ahrons refers to him without a hyphen as does O.S. Nock who was an admirer and who wrote a book about the 'Locomotives of C.J. Bowen Cooke' including a picture of the above Claughton on which the name can be seen.

The LNWR Society uses the name without hyphen as does current noted LNWR authors such as Ted Talbot and Peter Davis.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/..._in_St_Just's_Church,_St_Just_in_Roseland.JPG

 

Presumably then, in terms familiar to our membership, correct rendering of his name is as would be if the GNR/LNER master conjugator was referred to as (Sir) H.Nigel Gresley?

One thing I'd dearly love to learn (but most likely won't!) is the nature of improvements to the Claughtons intended by C.J.Bowen Cooke's cryptic comment about 'taking them in hand'. For any such modifications to have meant the class surviving the drastic culling of the Stamp/Stanier modernisation programme, I suspect they'd have had to be pretty darned successful. It rather begs another question, namely how on earth did the way from standard Midland compounds survive to be outlasted only by the (later) GNRI V Class?

 

A hyphen isn't essential for a double-barrelled name. I'm not sure how you'd definitively prove one way or the other.