Author: Cook, John Finall
Biography:
COOK, John Finall (1771-1856: ancestry.co.uk)
According to the inscription on his gravestone in St. Dunstan’s and Holy Angels churchyard, Cranford, Hounslow, London, he was born in Feb. 1771. He was baptised at St. Leonard’s church in nearby Heston on 26 Jan. 1772. His parents were Robert and Martha Cook. Their surname is spelled Cooke in the baptismal record; public records give John’s middle name variously as Finall, Finale, and Final. He married Elizabeth Cole in her parish of St. James’s church, Piccadilly, on 30 Apr. 1796; they had at least two daughters and two sons. (One son, also John Finall Cook [b 1802], shot and killed himself with a blunderbuss; the inquest on 11 Sept. 1819 gave a finding of suicide while in a state of temporary derangement.) The family lived in Heston where Cook served as the High Constable of Isleworth from 1804 until his death. Likely his wife had died by 1841 when the Census records Cook as living in Heston with two adult daughters. He died on 19 Mar. 1856. His will left a small estate to his children and identified a son, Edwin, as the administrator. However Edwin failed in his task and Cook’s will was proved only on 24 Feb. 1885 when Edwin’s own son, George, administered his father’s estate. John Finall Cook’s gravestone identifies him as “The Worst Used High Constable in England.” His will requested that he be buried in the Cranford churchyard as near as possible to the grave of the Rev. John Hughes, “a gentleman whose kind friendship I often experienced.” He published Miscellaneous Poems (1833), listed here, and Sacred Extracts; or, the Beauties of the Psalms and the Apocrypha (1841), with his occupation given on the title pages. (ancestry.co.uk 15 Feb. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 15 Feb. 2024; Morning Chronicle 13 Sept. 1819; contributions from SR) AA
Other Names:
- J. F. Cook