Robert Elliott-Cooper

Who was Robert Elliott-Cooper?

Sir Robert Elliott-Cooper, KCB was a British civil engineer.

Elliott-Cooper was born in Leeds in 1845. On 27 September 1870 he was commissioned into the 1st Yorkshire Artillery Volunteer Corps as a First Lieutenant, a rank replaced by that of Lieutenant during British Army standardisation in 1871. The 1st Yorkshire Artillery Volunteer Corps was a Volunteer Force coastal artillery unit formed at Leeds in 1860 and armed with 32 pounder guns. Elliott-Cooper was promoted to Captain on 5 June 1875 and Major on 16 April 1879. He resigned his commission as a Major on 27 February 1886 and was permitted to retain his rank and continue to wear the uniform. On 30 May 1874 Elliott-Cooper applied for a patent for "improvements in apparatus for locking railway signals and switches, and for locking railway signals and gates at level crossings", this patent was granted provisional protection on 26 June 1874.

Elliott-Cooper was appointed a tax commissioner for the City of Westminster and its liberties on 9 August 1899. He returned to the army by serving in the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps, an unpaid volunteer unit which provides technical expertise to the British Army.