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Société Anonyme John Cockerill (Shipping company, Belgium)

Last modified: 2011-12-24 by ivan sache
Keywords: societe anonyme john cockerill | rooster (white) | letters: sc (white) |
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[House flag of John Cockerill]

House flag of Société Anonyme John Cockerill - Image by Jarig Bakker, 22 February 2005


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Presentation of Société Anonyme John Cockerill

Société Anonyme John Cockerill was based in Seraing. John Cockerill (1790-1840) was a Belgian entrepreneur of British origin, who was responsible for the foundation of the huge Walloon enterprise Cockerill-Sambre. Starting out in Seraing in 1817, he founded indeed a business complex which would in time produce, for instance, locomotives and ships. Unfortunately, what's left of it is no longer so important.

Jarig Bakker & Jan Mertens, 23 February 2005


House flag of Société Anonyme John Cockerill

The house flag of Société Anonyme John Cockerill, as shown in Brown's Flags and Funnels (1926) [wed26], is made of three vertical stripes black-yellow-red (like the Belgian national flag), with a white S letter in the black stripe, a white C letter in the red stripe and the white contoured logotype of the company in the yellow stripe.

Lloyd's book of house flags and funnels of the principal steamship lines of the world and the house flags of various lines of sailing vessels, published at Lloyd's Royal Exchange. London. E.C. (1911), also available online thanks to the Mystic Seaport Foundation, shows a similar house flag for Société Anonyme John Cockerill, then registered in Ostende.

The rooster or cockerel in the logotype is canting for Cockerill. The family coat of arms is made of a red cross surrounded by four roosters in each corner, and another rooster as the crest; there is a five-pointed star on the cross, possibly differencing for a descendant. The motto seems to be "Courage to the last". These family arms are shown on the pedestal of J. Cockerill's statue at Seraing.

The Cockerill Yards at Hoboken (now Antwerp) no longer exist; there once was a Cockerill Yacht Club, forerunner of the Yachting Club Cockerill.

Jarig Bakker & Jan Mertens, 23 February 2005