Born 10th February 1865
Drowned at Sea, near Whitby, Tuesday 16th July 1918
As a Captain and temporary Pilot in the Mercantile Marine, Mr. Cocks was one of those surpassingly brave men who faced the dangers of the war at sea in order to maintain our seaborne supplies. For nearly four years of the war he was on the water and travelled far and wide. Then on Tuesday, 16th July 1918, he was piloting the S.S. Southborough from Deal to Middlesbrough, and although the ship was in a convoy of about 30 vessels, it was torpedoed near Whitby, and Capt. Cocks went down with the ship. As is recorded on another page, his only son, Oliver, lost his life in the Battle of Jutland more than two years earlier, and our reverent sympathy with his doubly bereaved widow and daughter is deeply intensified by the fact that both father and son were called away by the cruel occasions of war.
Reproduced from Homage: A Record of Our Heroes (a commemorative booklet produced by Seven Kings United Methodist Church c.1920)