Henry James Coles, was born in 1847 in London, an started work for a sawmill machinery maker at 13. He then moved to "Maudslay, Sons and Field" a firm of steam engine makers in 1870, and then in 1874 to Appleby Bros. a railway crane maker. Henry Cole took over the works in Southwark when they moved to East Greenwich in 1878 and started building his own cranes. He started building a variety of machinery and by 1895 it was noted as having built 18 cranes that year. These included 3 cranes for Woolwich Arsenal that worked on mains (water) Hydraulic pressure.