Liverpool
Pilot
William (Bill) Gerard Wilcox, 1922-1925
Bill Wilcox, who died on 15th July 2009, and his two brothers all attended Birkenhead School. After leaving School, Bill joined the Liverpool Pilotage Service. He followed in the footsteps of his father and uncle who were both serving Liverpool pilots at the time Bill joined the training ship HMS Conway, moored in the Mersey, in 1929. After the lengthy apprenticeship, Bill was licensed as a Liverpool pilot 3rd Class in 1936, soon after his twenty-fifth birthday. He was awarded his first class licence four years later, serving throughout all the difficult and dangerous years of the Second World War. Later he was Appointed Appropriated Pilot to the United Africa and Palm Line, where he served until his retirement in 1976. He was described by his colleagues as a most amiable and jolly fellow, who was also well -respected for his conscientiousness and skill as a pilot.
His younger brother,
Norman
D
Wilcox, also an OB, was a Liverpool
pilot too. He was tragically lost with the submarine 'Thetis' during her sea
trials in the Liverpool Bay in 1939, only a year after he got his Pilot's
licence. The late JH Wilcox MC, Bill's other brother, became a director of
Ruston Bucyrus earth moving machinery. Bill sent his two sons, CJP and WAH
Wilcox, to Birkenhead School and they in their turn sent theirs.
