imported>Neurtaisl: Importing Wikidata short description: "English cricketer, businessman and philanthropist (1862–1944)"

2025-06-03T16:02:18Z

Importing Wikidata short description: "English cricketer, businessman and philanthropist (1862–1944)"

New page

{{Short description|English cricketer, businessman and philanthropist (1862–1944)}}
{{EngvarB|date=August 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2024}}
{{Infobox cricketer
| name = Dudley Docker
| image =
| country = England
| fullname = Frank Dudley Docker
| height =
| nickname =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1862|8|26|df=yes}}
| birth_place = [[Smethwick]], Staffordshire, England
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1944|7|8|1862|8|26|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[Amersham]], Buckinghamshire, England
| batting =
| bowling =
| role =
| family = {{ubl|[[Bernard Docker]] (son)||[[Norah, Lady Docker]] (daughter-in-law)|[[Ludford Docker]] (brother)|[[Ralph Docker]] (brother)}}
| club1 = [[Derbyshire County Cricket Club|Derbyshire]]
| year1 = {{ubl|1881–1882}}
| type1 = [[First-class cricket|FC]]
| debutdate1 = 22 August
| debutyear1 = 1881
| debutfor1 = Derbyshire
| debutagainst1 = [[Yorkshire County Cricket Club|Yorkshire]]
| lastdate1 = 5 June
| lastyear1 = 1882
| lastfor1 = Derbyshire
| lastagainst1 = [[Surrey County Cricket Club|Surrey]]
| columns = 1
| column1 = [[First-class cricket|First-class]]
| matches1 = 2
| runs1 = 33
| bat avg1 = 11.00
| 100s/50s1 = 0/0
| top score1 = 25
| hidedeliveries = true
| catches/stumpings1= 3/–
| date = 20 June
| year = 2011
| source = https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/29/29101/29101.html CricketArchive
}}
'''Frank Dudley Docker''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|CB}} (26 August 1862 – 8 July 1944) was an English businessman and financier. He also played first-class [[cricket]] for [[Derbyshire County Cricket Club|Derbyshire]] in 1881 and 1882.

==Biography==

===Family background, early life and education===

[[File:Paxton House, South Road, Smethwick.jpg|thumb|Paxton House, seen in 2020]]

Docker was born at Paxton House, [[Smethwick]], [[Staffordshire]], the son of Ralph Docker and his second wife, Sarah Maria (1830–1890), daughter of horse dealer Richard Sankey. His first wife was Sarah's elder sister, Mary Ann (1826–1849), with whom he had three daughters. Following some years as a widower, Ralph married Sarah, with whom he had five sons and four daughters. Ralph Docker was a solicitor in practice at [[Birmingham]] and Smethwick who took on a large number of public appointments, including Coroner for North Worcestershire; at the time of his retirement, two days before his death in 1887, Ralph Docker was the oldest and longest-serving Coroner in England.<ref name="Dudley Docker 1984, p. 11">''Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior'', [[R. P. T. Davenport-Hines]], Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 11</ref> The Docker family's fortunes were set in motion by Thomas Docker, a Moseley brass founder; the descendants of his six sons and three daughters were established in the Midlands as professionals or gentlemen of private means. Despite Dudley Docker's own strong family loyalties, he was not given to ancestor-worship or devotion to genealogy; the notably brief pedigrees in the Burke's Landed Gentry editions of 1921 and 1937 in which he appears as head of the family of 'Docker of the Gables' contain numerous errors supplied by Docker himself- he provided erroneous information relating to the dates of his father's birth and death, his mother's death, and the name of his maternal grandfather.<ref name="Dudley Docker 1984, p. 11"/>

Docker attended [[King Edward's School, Birmingham]] but appears to have resisted formal schooling and left early. He was equally discontented when he went into his father's office to study law. In 1881 he left his father's firm and went into the varnish business with his brother William.<ref name="books.google.com">[https://books.google.com/books?id=kHx7hVRhKfYC&dq=%22Docker+brothers%22&pg=PA12 R. P. T. Davenport-Hines ''Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior'' Cambridge University Press 2004]</ref>

===Cricketer===
In the [[Derbyshire County Cricket Club in 1881|1881 season]] Docker played a first-class match for [[Derbyshire County Cricket Club|Derbyshire]] against Yorkshire which was drawn. He also played a match in the [[Derbyshire County Cricket Club in 1882|1882 season]] against Sussex where he scored 25 in his first innings but Derbyshire lost by a few runs. From 1884 to 1886 he played a few games for [[Warwickshire County Cricket Club|Warwickshire]], two games for Gentlemen of Warwick in 1887 and 1888 and one game again for Warwickshire in 1889.<ref>[https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/29/29101/29101.html Frank Docker at Cricket Archive]</ref>

===Paint and varnish===
In 1886 a third brother [[Ludford Docker|Ludford]] joined Docker Brothers and the death of his father in 1887 brought more capital into the firm. The varnish business grew into more general paint supply, and in 1894 the company opened a London office reflecting their success in winning orders from railway and rolling stock companies and Docker developed his interest and success in making deals. In 1902 he arranged the amalgamation of five rolling stock companies into the Metropolitan Amalgamated Carriage and Wagon Company, one of the largest business combines of the time which in 1911 employed 14,000 people and occupied {{convert|475|acre|km2}} of factory space.<ref>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22965 ''Economic and Social History: Industry and Trade, 1880–1960'', A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 7: The City of Birmingham (1964), pp. 140–208. Date accessed: 14 February 2009]</ref> In 1906 he became a director of [[Birmingham Small Arms Company]], the arms manufacturer which also grew into a leading motorcycle company. In 1908 he became a director of [[W & T Avery Ltd.]], manufacturers of weighing equipment. He became a [[Justice of the Peace|J. P.]] in 1909 and his interests diversified into railways with directorship of [[Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway]] from 1909 to 1912, the [[Metropolitan Railway]] from 1915 to 1933, [[London, Brighton and South Coast Railway]] from 1921 to 1922 and then the [[Southern Railway (Great Britain)|Southern Railway]] until 1938.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Humm |first1=Robert |title=Dudley Docker and the railways |journal=Journal of the Railway & Canal Historical Society |date=November 2017 |volume=39 |issue=230 |page=183 |url=https://rchs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Journal-230-Nov-2017.pdf |access-date=10 October 2024}}</ref> He was the chairman of [[Metropolitan Carriage, Wagon and Finance Company Ltd.|Metropolitan Carriage and Wagon]] during the [[First World War]], constructing the first [[tank]]s.
<ref name="Devils Chariots" >{{Cite book
|title=The Devil's Chariots
|last=Glanfield |first=John
|publisher=Sutton
|year=2001
|isbn=0-7509-4152-9
|page=94
}}</ref> He was also a director of the [[Midland Bank]] from 1912 until his death.<ref name="books.google.com"/> He was one of the founders of the [[Federation of British Industry]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=SM-Sp8OxcAsC&dq=%22Frank+Dudley+Docker%22&pg=PA193 Ephraim Maisel, Martin Gilbert ''The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1919–26'' Sussex Academic Press 1994]</ref>

===Death, family, and recognition===
Docker married Lucy Constance, daughter of distinguished Birmingham legal figure John Benbow Hebbert (1809–1887), in 1895. They initially lived at Rotton Park Lodge, close to the Docker Brothers varnish factory, before moving to The Gables, at Kenilworth, and, in 1935 moved to Coleshill House, [[Amersham]], Buckinghamshire, where Docker died. He had also acquired a flat in [[Berkeley Square]] Mayfair in 1923.<ref>''Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior'', [[R. P. T. Davenport-Hines]], Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 17</ref> Their only child [[Bernard Docker]] succeeded his father in his business enterprises.

Docker was a substantial benefactor (£10,000) toward [[Ernest Shackleton]]'s [[Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition]] in 1914–1916. In recompense for donations toward the success of the expedition, Shackleton named one of the lifeboats aboard the expedition vessel the ''Dudley Docker''. The benefaction proved significant when the expedition vessel sank and the castaways were forced to use the ''Dudley Docker'' for survival.

In addition to Ludford, Docker's elder brother [[Ralph Docker]] also played cricket for Derbyshire.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

[[R P T Davenport-Hines]], ''Dudley Docker: the life and times of a trade warrior'', [[Cambridge University Press]], 1984.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Docker, Frank Dudley}}
[[Category:1862 births]]
[[Category:1944 deaths]]
[[Category:English businesspeople]]
[[Category:English cricketers]]
[[Category:Derbyshire cricketers]]
[[Category:Warwickshire cricketers]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Bath]]
[[Category:Sportspeople from Smethwick]]
[[Category:English justices of the peace]]
[[Category:Cricketers from Staffordshire]]

Dudley Docker - Revision history

imported>Neurtaisl: Importing Wikidata short description: "English cricketer, businessman and philanthropist (1862–1944)"