In 1916 Alfred Cooksley was working for the English branch of German woodworking machinery manufacturer Ernst Kirchner & Co., the branch having been established in 1893 or '94. Cooksley had been there since 1901, beginning as draftsman, then chief engineer, and then assistant manager before becoming manager of the whole branch operation.

That Kirchner branch operation was a business owned by a hostile nation during wartime, and it was seized by the government in that year and offered up for sale. Cooksley purchased the business himself and renamed it to A. Cooksley & Co.

Over the next few years Cooksley updated their line of woodworking machinery, most notably dovetailing machines and chain mortisers, both of them with patented design improvements.

In 1943 A. Cooksley & Co., Ltd. was registered as a private company. By 1961 the firm had grown to 150 employees, with principal operations in the manufacturing of woodworking machinery.

Information Sources

• 1961 - Dun and Bradstreet KBE
• Grace's Guide pages on Alfred Cooksley and A. Cooksley and Co. The latter page asserts that the firm was founded in 1896, which is the year that the Kirchner office was opened.
• Lathes.co.uk has a page on Cooksley lathes. The history there is cribbed from the above linked Grace's Guide company page.
• Our history of W. B. Haigh & Co., Ltd. mentions that the English branch of Kirchner was created by Johann Wilhelm Gruban, who moved from Germany to England in 1893 for that purpose.