Coles

Coles, Cowper Phipps (1819-1870), an English naval architect, was born in 1819, entered the navy and became captain in 1856. He was the great advocate and in part inventor of the turret ship. The Captain - a turret-ship built from his designs - was commissioned in 1870, and on the 7th of September of that year capsized in a gale off Cape Finisterre, Captain Coles himself and almost all on board being drowned. A tablet in St. Paul's commemorates this event and gives the names of those lost.