Author: Cooke, William
Biography:
COOKE, William (1736/7-1824: ODNB)
The ODNB gives no information about his parents but the record of his admission to the Middle Temple on 23 June 1770 identifies him as the second son of Hugh Cooke, deceased, of Cork in Ireland. A Hugh Cooke married Mary Campion in Cork in 1718; they may have been Cooke’s parents. The name of his elder brother is not known but his sisters were Elizabeth (Parks) and Mary (Mahoney); they predeceased him. Cooke was educated in the Cork grammar school. His first marriage was in Ireland to an heiress whose name is not known; she may have died before he moved to London in about 1766. He arrived in London with recommendations to the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Duke of Richmond, Edmund Burke, and Oliver Goldsmith (q.v.). Goldsmith was to become a close friend. His second wife was Maria Galway; her surname has not been confirmed by public records. There seem to have been no children from either marriage. Cooke was called to the bar on 30 June 1775 but he soon gave up the law for literature. He found success particularly with Conversation which went to several editions and introduced the members of the Turk’s Head Tavern literary club on Gerrard Street, including Samuel Johnson (q.v.). Other publications include Elements of Dramatic Criticism (1775), The Capricious Lady, A Comedy (1783), Memoirs of Samuel Foote (1805) and Memoirs of C. Macklin (1806). The Art of Living in London (first published 1768) is sometimes attributed to him or to James Smith of Tewkesbury. When Cooke wrote his will on 7 July 1821, his wife had already died and been buried at St. George’s, Hanover Square. He died on 3 Apr. 1824 at his residence in London on Half Moon Street and was buried at St. George’s on 10 Apr. He left bequests to his servants, family members, and friends. Ellen Lloyd, Cooke’s sister-in-law and the wife of the Rev. John Lloyd, was given £2500. He left “half a dozen volumes of manuscripts consisting of notes and observations” to John Taylor of the Sun newspaper, with an injunction against publishing them under Cooke’s name. (ODNB 29 Feb. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 29 Feb. 2024; National Archives UK PROB 11/1684/194; GM 94 [1824], 374-75; Herbert Wise Gillman, “Index to the Marriage License Bonds of the Diocese of Cork and Ross,” Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society [1896], 23) SR