Author: Cook, George
Biography:
COOK, George: (1775-1817: ancestry.co.uk)
A Selection from the Manuscript Poems of the Rev. Geo. Cook is attributed in catalogues to George Cook (1772-1845: ODNB), the Church of Scotland minister and historian. This is incorrect. The book is almost certainly by George Cook who was a fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and who died in 1817. Just three copies of his book are known to survive in libraries worldwide and one of those is held by the library at St. John’s. The circumstances of its publication sixteen years after his death are not known; the subscription list has not been seen but it may contain clues to the book’s publishing history. Cook was the son of George Cook (1751-1825) and his wife Jane Witty (1753-1824) who had married in Seaton Ross, Yorkshire, on 10 Dec. 1772. He was baptised in Seaton Ross on 23 Apr. 1775. Nothing is known about his early education but he was admitted to St. John’s College, Cambridge, on 17 May 1797 (Scholar 1800, BA 1801, MA 1804, Fellow 1803-12). He was ordained a priest in London in 1801 and in Oct. of the same year Charles Yorke, Secretary for War, appointed him as chaplain to the garrison at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. In Mar. 1810 St. John’s presented him to the rectory of Brinkley, Cambridgeshire. Cook never married and he died at Brinkley on 24 Jan. 1817. There is a memorial tablet to him in St. Mary’s church in Brinkley. His only publication during his lifetime was A Funeral Sermon for Lord Nelson (1805). (ancestry.co.uk 1 Mar. 2024; ACAD; CCEd 1 Mar. 2024; Admissions to the College of St. John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge [1931])
Other Names:
- Geo. Cook