Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/103

 of a shoemaker at Hexham in Northumberland. He received his education as king's scholar at Durham School, and afterwards entered at Queen's College, Oxford (22 Feb. 1742–3), where he never took a degree. He obtained the curacy of Embleton, Northumberland, and soon was brought into notoriety by the singularity of his religious notions. He maintained that the Jewish ceremonies were not abrogated by the christian dispensation, and insisted on the necessity of circumcision, supporting his doctrine by his own practice. At this period he assumed the names of Adam Moses Emanuel (, Local Records, ed. 1833, i. 328). On being deprived of his curacy he came to London, preached in the streets, and commenced author; but as his unintelligible jargon did not sell he was reduced to great distress. For two or three years he was confined in Bedlam (, Local Historian's Table Book, historical division, ii. 283). On his release he travelled through Scotland and Ireland. Ultimately he returned to the north of England, and until a few years before his death subsisted on a pension allowed him by the Society of the Sons of the Clergy. His last project was for establishing a grand universal church upon true evangelical principles. His death, which occurred at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 15 Nov. 1783, is said to have been occasioned by his copying Origen too closely (, Biog. Dram., ed. 1812, i. 146).

He wrote, besides a large number of published sermons: 1. ‘The King cannot err,’ a comedy, 1762. 2. ‘The Hermit converted; or the Maid of Bath married,’ a comedy, London, 1771, 8vo. No one but a lunatic could have written the dramatic pieces.



COOKE, THOMAS (1763–1818), writer on physiognomy, was born at Sheffield on 20 March 1763. He was engaged in trade early in life, but when twenty-two years old he began the study of physiognomy, of which ‘science’ he became a devoted enthusiast and expounder. He died at Manchester on 26 July 1818, and in the following year his papers were collected and published under the title of ‘A Practical and Familiar View of the Science of Physiognomy.’



COOKE, THOMAS (1807–1868), optician, the son of a poor shoemaker, was born at Allerthorpe in the East Riding of Yorkshire on 8 March 1807. His education was limited to two years at the national school, after which he was put to his father's trade. Poring over the narrative of Captain Cook's voyages, he was fired with the desire to emulate them. He studied navigation diligently, and was on the point of engaging himself for a seaman, when his mother's tears persuaded him to seek a less distant livelihood. Renewed application fitted him, at the age of sixteen, to open a school in his native village, which he continued until his removal to York about 1829. There, during seven years, he supported himself by teaching, while his spare moments were devoted to the study of mathematics and practical mechanics. Optics attracted him, and his first effort towards telescope-construction was with one of the reflecting kind. But the requisite metals cost money, and he turned to refractors, finding cheap material in the bottom of a common drinking-glass. Methods of shaping and polishing were gradually contrived, and, after a laborious process of self-initiation, he at length succeeded in producing a tolerable achromatic, afterwards purchased by Professor Phillips of Oxford, his constant friend and patron. He was now induced, by offers of countenance from many quarters, to enter upon business as an optician.

His first important order was from Mr. William Gray, F.R.S., for a 4½-inch equatorial, and so effectually had glass manufacture in England been obstructed by an oppressive excise duty, that the undertaking was then regarded as of no small moment. It was succeeded in 1851 by a commission from Mr. Pattinson of Gateshead for one of seven inches aperture, lent in 1856 to Professor Piazzi Smyth for his celebrated expedition to Teneriffe. Its successful execution added so much to Cooke's reputation and business that an extension of his premises became necessary. He accordingly erected new workshops, afterwards known as the Buckingham Works, in Bishop-hill, York, and removed his establishment thither in 1855. It consisted at that time of five or six workmen and one apprentice; when he died above one hundred persons were in his employment.

The enterprise by which he gained European celebrity was undertaken in September 1863. In the previous year Alvan Clark of Boston had turned out a refractor of 18½-inches aperture. Mr. Newall, a manufacturer of submarine cables at Gateshead, now committed to Cooke the onerous task of producing one of no less than twenty-five inches. So considerable an advance in size involved difficulties overcome only by unremitting patience and ingenuity. The destruction of colour was rendered highly arduous by the magnitude of the lenses, and their weight menaced at every moment the permanence of their figure. The optical part of the commission was com-