Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol II (1901).djvu/70

 Frank Henry Cook, Mr. Thomas Albert Cook, and Mr. Ernest Edward Cook—now carry on the three branches of his business, tourist, banking, and shipping, the banking and exchange department being more especially controlled by Mr. Ernest Edward Cook.



COOKE, GEORGE (1768–1837), lieutenant-general, born in 1768, was the son and heir of George John Cooke of Harefield, Middlesex, grandson of George Cooke (d. 5 June 1768), prothonotary of the court of common pleas and member of parliament for Middlesex from 1767 to 1768, and great-grandson of Sir George Cooke (d. 4 Nov. 1740) of Harefield, prothonotary of the court of common pleas. His sister Penelope Anne married Robert Brudenell, sixth earl of Cardigan, and was the mother of James Thomas Brudenell, seventh earl [q. v.] Cooke was educated at Harrow, and at Caen in Normandy. He was appointed ensign in the 10th foot guards in 1784 and lieutenant and captain in 1792. In March 1794 he joined the flank battalion of the guards in Flanders, and in June was appointed aide-de-camp to Major-general (Sir) [q. v.] He was present when the combined armies took the field and attacked the French posts in April; in the actions of 17 and 18 May, and at the affair at Boxtel on 15 Sept. In 1795 he joined the brigade of guards at Darley camp and became aide-de-camp to Major-general Edmund Stevens. In 1798 he was promoted to be captain and lieutenant-colonel in his regiment, and in August 1799 he went with it to Holland. He was present in the action at the Zuype on 10 Sept., and in the battle on 19 Sept., when he was severely wounded.

From 1803 until the spring of 1805 he held the post of assistant adjutant-general to the north-west district. In 1806 he went to Sicily, returning to England in December 1807. On 25 April 1808 he received the brevet rank of colonel, and in July 1809 he was employed in the expedition to the Schelde, whence he returned sick in September.

In April 1811 he went to Cadiz, and on 4 June attained the rank of major-general and succeeded to the command of the troops stationed there, which he retained until his return to England in July 1813. In November he went to Holland with the brigade of guards. He commanded the first division of the guards at Waterloo, and lost his right arm in the battle. He was appointed K.C.B. on 22 June 1815, and colonel of the 77th foot on the following day. He also received for his share in the engagement the insignia of the third class of the order of St. George of Russia and of the third class of the order of Wilhelm of the Netherlands. On 20 Oct. 1819 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Portsmouth, a post which he resigned a few years later. On 19 July 1821 he obtained the rank of lieutenant-general, and on 23 Dec. 1834 he was transferred to the command of the 40th regiment. He died unmarried at his house, Harefield Park, on 3 Feb. 1837.



COOPER, THOMAS (1805–1892), chartist, born in Leicester on 20 March 1805, was the son of a working dyer. The family removed to Exeter when Cooper was a few months old, and there his father died three years afterwards. The widow returned to Gainsborough and opened a business in dyeing and fancy box making. Cooper was admitted into a bluecoat school, and remained there until 1820, when, after a trial of the sea, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. He had been an intelligent pupil, and as an apprentice seized every opportunity for self-culture, studying Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and these he put to use when, after a serious illness in 1827, he gave up shoemaking at Gainsborough and opened a school there. In 1829 he added the work of a methodist local preacher to that of schoolmaster, but, failing at Gainsborough, he removed to Lincoln. Here he was not more successful, and in 1836 joined the staff of a liberal newspaper in Lincoln, whence, after a few months' residence in Stamford, he went to London in 1839. Failing to obtain newspaper work, he assisted a second-hand bookseller, and then for a month or two edited the 'Kentish Mercury' from Greenwich, but in 1840 he accepted an invitation to go to Leicester and join the staff of the 'Leicestershire Mercury.' Immediately afterwards he became a chartist, and, his employers objecting, he left them and undertook the editorship of the chartist 'Midland Counties Illuminator.' For the four succeeding years he was one of the foremost of the more extreme party among the chartists, and in 1841 was nominated for the representation in the House of Commons of both the town and the county of Leicester, but did not go 