Editing Ernest Cox (section)

==Cox and Danks==
In 1913 he set up the firm of '''Cox and Danks Ltd''', with his wife's cousin Tommy Danks as a silent partner and financier. Cox's need for capital was met by Danks, who sought a way to increase his inheritance without personal involvement in business.

The firm was well positioned to profit from large munitions manufacturing contracts during [[World War I]]. The end of hostilities opened new and lucrative opportunities in scrap and metal salvage, enabling Cox to open new business in [[Sheffield]], and buy out his partner Danks' interests by 1920. In 1921 Cox had branched out into shipbreaking and opened a yard at [[Queenborough]] on the [[Isle of Sheppey]], on the [[River Thames]] estuary. There the company broke up and sold off an assortment of World War I surplus vessels, including two British battleships {{HMS|Erin}} and {{HMS|Orion|1910|6}} and some ex-German naval items including a large floating dock taken as reparation following the scuttling of the [[German High Seas Fleet]] prior to the [[Armistice]].

Fatal accidents on the wreck of the [[White Star Line|White Star]] liner {{RMS|Celtic||2}} (stranded on the Cow and Calf rocks, adjacent to Roches Point, off [[Cobh]], Ireland in 1929), took some of the drive out of Cox, for he respected his workers and treated them accordingly. In Cox's opinion money could always be replaced, but good men could not. Resultantly, during 1932 he sold the company's marine salvaging business to Alloa Shipbreaking, and retired himself from marine salvage. Cox remained a consultant to the [[British Admiralty]] on matters of deep water salvage, and undertook their side of the work in the raising in 1932 of the old battleship {{HMS|Emperor of India}}, contracted to the Alloa Shipbreaking, which the Admiralty had used as a target ship and sunk by mistake.

Foreseeing the possibilities of another war in Europe in the late 1930s, Cox expanded the scrap metals business by opening yards in: [[Bedford]]; [[Birmingham]]; [[London]] ([[Brentford]], [[Feltham]] and [[Park Royal]]); [[Manchester]]; and [[Neath]] ([[South Wales]]). During [[World War II]] he undertook research and development for classified materials for the [[Ministry of Supply]]. Cox's last salvage task was during WW2, raising of the ship ''Stella'', which, having been bombed by the [[Luftwaffe]], had then sunk in and thereby blocked the [[Manchester Ship Canal]]. Again, Cox and Danks flourished as the war ended, disposing of military surplus and salvage.

In 1949, Cox sold the firm to [[Metal Industries Group]], who by now owned Alloa Shipbreaking. Though the salvage side of the business never quite broke even, especially during the course of the salvage of the German fleet (he was ten thousand pounds out of pocket at the sale of his interests), the [[scrap metal]] side business offset the loss by turning considerable profit, ensuring that when he retired he and his family no longer needed to work.

Cox & Danks Ltd did well during the post-[[Beeching Axe]] era in the early 1960s, tendering for contracts to scrap surplus railway locomotives, rolling stock and associated equipment for [[British Railways]]. The majority of the [[GWR King Class]] locomotives were withdrawn late in 1962, with ten allocated to Cox and Danks for disposal.<ref>Portraits of Kings; B Holden & K Leech, Moorland Publishing Co.Ltd 1979</ref> On 1 April 1970 the company, by then part of the Metal Industries wing of [[Thorn Electrical Industries]], became a subsidiary of the Six Hundred Metal Holdings group owned by George Cohen's [[George Cohen Sons and Company|"600" Group]].<ref>"Metal pair-up by '600' and Thorn", Bids, Deals & Mergers, ''The Times'', 14 April 1970</ref>